Looking for contacts related to STEM Facilities and Programs

[Jon Stratis]

My team went through this a few years ago - The school was looking at two expansion projects, one of which was a STEM center. They contracted a company to design it, then brought the designs to us. The company came up with 3 large classrooms - we said "There appears to be a communication problem here". We ended up redesigning it for them, and it turned out pretty awesome!

There's one large classroom, big enough for us to have a 1/2 practice field. All of the desks are on wheels, so they can really easily be moved out of the classroom while we practice. The ceiling is as high as we can get it (in our old build space, we've had robots that almost hit 11' ceilings before - I recommend 16' or higher!). The walls have diamond plate on the bottom 18", as we anticipate that's where most of the impacts would happen, and additional plastic sheeting going up another couple of feet to help protect the drywall.

There's a machine shop that was spec'd out for the equipment we either had at the time, or had on our wish list. Large table in the middle of the room, with retractable power drops coming from the ceiling. You'll want to seriously consider if you want centralized air storage/vacuum.

We have an assembly area that has 4 large standing height tables, each with their own retractable power drop. It's got two more tables dedicated to robotics, as well as storage along an entire long wall.

We added in a conference room with a kitchenette - we're there enough that having a microwave and a mini fridge really comes in handy. Plus the separate room is nice for our business team to work in.

And there's a dedicated Lego room - a ton of workbenches for Lego team's, and a central table large enough for a full FLL field.

We have access a few ways - There's a main door into the STEM Center, near the lego room. There's a door straight into the conference room, which then leads into the classroom. There's a rolling door so we can back our trailer inside, and finally a service door we can access from the outside so students don't have to walk through the entire school late at night (in fact, we don't want them in the rest of the school late at night anyways). There's actually a rolling door on the other side of the space as well, to give access to a courtyard the build space cut off access to.

Finally, there are a lot of windows internally. This was designed so a teacher could stand in a single spot to oversee a class of kids spread out between the classroom, assembly area, and shop all at once. It also helps the team feel like a team while they're spread out all over the place!

Here's a brief video tour, before the team moved everything in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIxNP6FuiLM

Let me know if you need any other info!