facilities

[Phil Paspalas]

Get the technology teachers (materials, engineering design, etc.) involved and you will have most everything you need at your disposal: space, tools, fabrication equipment, AND experience!

[coastertux]

Team 1640 also works out of a physics lab. We simply do not have the space in the school to have our own room and we do not have the funds to maintain our own building.

[Billfred]

1293 has a closet, 145" by 95". (It's too early in the morning to do any conversions on that.) Luckily, with the exception of a router hanging on the wall, it's all ours. It's big enough to hold all our stuff (Ockham, the remainders of Bob and practice robot Hockham, four KOP bins, a recycling robot that I keep forgetting to get pictures of, and plenty of tools and other things).

When we got the space, it came with a lot of junk left behind. Fasteners that weighed a pound a piece, old busted computer equipment, and then stuff folks brought in our rookie year but never got used. So during these past few weeks we've been going through everything, throwing away or recycling old junk (those large fasteners, scrapped prototype units from Ockham's lift mechanism, pretty much all of Bob except the frame), giving some things to the science team at Irmo (some small non-kit motors someone brought in our rookie year), and organizing and inventorying everything else, especially tools. (Until yesterday, I couldn't have told you that 1293 had three hacksaws, two claw hammers, and a ball peen hammer in that room.)

So I guess that's my advice for anyone: claim a space, any space (so long as your robot(s) will fit in it), and make it yours. If you have to throw out things and sledgehammer away shelves, do it. (Just make sure you're wearing safety glasses when sledgehammering.)

[lukevanoort]

For the first few years 587 was in the back of a physics class. Luckily, ours had normal tables, but it was a classroom in use, giving a few issues. Eventually we moved to about two thirds of an empty room. That worked pretty well, but apparently we needed to move so the room could be used. Now we're in a small room, with a busted tile floor (not flush tile), and black mold, just for kicks. So, we went from bad to good to wors.

[dlavery]

Team 116 builds the robot in a shared facility at the school. About 20 years ago, all the shop programs at the school were shut down (due to some amazing short-sightedness by certain administration officials who were of the opinion that "no one does 'shop' any more" and they needed more 'advanced' programs). So they converted the three shops into a drama room (OK), an art room (OK) -- and a weight training room (remember the prior comment about 'advanced' programs? Yeah...). So anyway, when the team started at the school in 1999, there was no place to build the robot.

We noticed that the drama club was building all their sets in the back of the drama room. The sets for each performance were built with hand tools brought in by the parents in the drama booster club, which was a real pain for all involved. So we cut a deal with the drama department. We were able to take over and wall off a 20x20 foot space at the back of their room and put in a shop (assembly tables, mill, lathe, drill press, table saw, band saw, etc.). In return, when we were not using the shop to build the robot, the drama department could use the shop and our tools to build sets for their productions. Both sides got what they needed, and the arrangement has worked out pretty well for the past several years.

-dave

[sciguy125]

Originally Posted by dlavery

We noticed that the drama club was building all their sets in the back of the drama room.

We thought about that too. Part of the school's previously mentioned additions was a theater (complete with orchestra pit, dressing rooms?, and set shop). They have a nice space and nice tools. But, they put on a production during build period. They were nice enough, however, to let us borrow some tools on a couple occasions.

[gburlison]

Team 662 has never had the same build location two seasons in a row. We are currently looking for a location for the coming year. Team 662 is multi school team and none of the schools have space for us. The school district is growing and there is a slim chance that we might be able to get some space in a new building the school district is buying, but that would be for the 2006-2007 season. Last year the local mall donated space, however, since Christmas is the busiest time of the year for retail, we could not move in until after Christmas. We are still working with the local mall, and have contacted some commercial real estate brokers to see if anyone is interested in donating some empty commercial space. We may end up in a mentors garage like back in 2003.

[Chaos204]

If you are in any sort of Physics lab or technology lab be happy.

We are in an Art Teacher's classroom who despises us. If we move the tables or chairs out of place she will yell at us and have us kicked out. I am not kidding.

In total we have about 1 wall and a work bench sticking out of it to call our own but since it is one room if it is not clean we will be yelled at.
There is a "back room" which is somewhat ours it is technically an office for the teacher with the adjoining room but we seem to have taken it over as long as the desk is clean.
This year we walked in to the room to find that over the summer a huge metal bending machine was put in there. this would seem like a good thing but it takes up essentially the entire room.

our metal shop consists of 3 machines a who knows how old lathe a broken milling machine and another milling/lathe machine. (they line our wall)

So i ask that all the privileged teams with there own room no matter how small and backing form the school appreciate what you have and for those in the same situation hang on and don't give up.

[EricH]

Have you tried talking to the school board or faculty? I think that if they knew what you need, they might be willing to help you (as long as you stay on their good side). I mean, if the students want to get a better location so badly that they are going to the faculty or higher, someone will probably find a place other then the physics lab for you to work. If they say that you have a place, tell them why it isn't suitable for you guys. Ask them to watch you for a night. If they still don't let you build somewhere else in the school, then you did your best, and you'll have to live with a bad place until you can find a better one elsewhere.

[Kyle Love]

The Technokats has an AMAZING partnership with our local power company (CINERGY). They allow us to use quite a huge amount of space in the back of their warehouse area. We also have a big area in the back of our shop that is big enough to hold a legal size field, although we typically only build half of it. If it weren't for CINERGY I'm almost sure we would not have close to the space that we have. Thank you CINERGY!

-KL

[KORN_lover_2007]

Team 1108 was using a building that used to be an Apple Market as our shop for all the years we have had a team. The owner of the building was letting us use it for free because there was no other business or company that was renting it out. It was a pretty large space that was good for building, a storage room in the back, a place along a wall where we could hook up our computers, and it was in town close to the school. But this year a company is renting out the building so we needed to move. We have been moved to our district's administration building, which used to be the high school many years ago. Here we have a large room where we have meetings (although it is very hot in there, hopefully when it starts getting colder it does not become cold), a small computer room, and a workshop with powertools that used to be the old woodshop. As of now all of our stuff is squished into a closet until the janitors move out of that area. Other people use the building and rooms too, so I'm not sure yet about how build season is going to go with that. I also do not know where we will have a place to build a small reconstruction of part of the playing field to practice on. But I'm hoping it will all work out.

[kireitenshi00]

Hey, I know how you feel, TRUST ME. Our team (anywhere from 40-60 people) meets in the school physics lab. Needless to say, it's a tight squeeze. This area is really where we come up with a basic design of the robot and have other robotics related meetings that do not involve power tools... Luckily for us though, our partner, the Ohio State University, has allowed us to work in its Center for Automotive Research building (CAR). Therefore, we have to drive about a half hour to the other site. It's got a machine shop and everything, but we're quite restricted due to the number of student projects going on. I think the rule is now only ten FIRST people are allowed in the machine shop at all times, which severely limits us, especially since we share the facilities with 2 other central Ohio teams. In terms of space, we basically we have a cubicle in the high bay, which barely fits 5 people, so we tend to spread out. Yet again, another tight squeeze.

While this sounds kind of bad, we get a great opportunity to check out some engineering projects going. The massive DARPA truck OSU rigged was in there for some time, and we get to sneak a peak at the Buckeye Bullet every once in awhile.

Our team has been around for... 9 or 10 years, I dunno. We rotated between our own room and sharing a room, and now we share the room. However, the room we're in does have a back office which we turned into our machine shop. The classroom is divided in half, with a blue line through it. The general rule is if you aren't robotics, you don't cross the line.

One of the interesting things about being around so long with the same room is the fact that we have had a few different teachers in that room. They all seem to inherit the idea that we really are the masters of the room... However, we still respect them and their schedule, so they don't end up resenting us being there....

[hoag]

My team must be lucky, we've had the same rooms in our technology wing "cave" since 1998. We even were able to get more rooms, closet space, and a robotics office after the entire wing was gutted and renovated in 2000.

If you're low on space, organization is the best thing to work on. My team tries to work on it every year, but we're so focused on the robot that we don't always do the best job.

For testing, I guess a gymnasium would be good. We use a commons area near the tech wing because it takes too long to bring everything over to the gym. We never go outside because unfinished robot+wet snow=death.

If you still need room, talk to your sponsor and see if they'll help out.

[Freddy Schurr]

We work out of the Graphics room and we have ample room. Tools line up against the walls and shelves everywhere.

May I say that maybe you could talk to, if you have, a wood-shop teacher and see if you could work out of the woodshop room. That be great because you would get more room and more tools at your area.