have any teams had any luck approaching local malls for spaces to practice?

[Jessica Boucher]

I'm surprised noone else from 237 have mentioned this, but we did one at the Brass Mill Center back in 99 or 00 (it's getting to be so long ago I can hardly remember.)

I don't think the management really understood what we said when we asked "to set up a booth and drive our robot around in front of it", and it took a lot of convincing to get done. I would suggest sending along a picture of what you would like to do to give them a better feel of what will happen.

Attaching pictures of other mall setups (like GUS') may convince them further that this is not as much as a far-out idea as it sounds, if other malls have agreed to do it.

I would discuss liability, and after the demo occurs, send a thank-you note with a picture of the robot on display at the mall. Not only should you have a picture of the demo anyway, but it's something cool for the mall to display to show that they care about the community.