Build Space

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by EricH

Quit complaining about small school size. Hope Chapel Academy (team 330) has about 200-300 students, K-12. The team typically has 7-10 students.

Who's complaining? I *love* my small, rural school, and the direct impact that FIRST has had on the population. (Last year, 54% of the senior class went on to college specifically for science and engineering fields.)

[rees2001]

340 has been lucky with our build facilities. Our first 3 years we bounced around different area's of our first sponsor, Nortel Networks, in the City of Rochester. It was nice because back in 2000 there were only a couple of teams in Rochester so we could draw kids from other schools that didn't have FIRST teams.

In 2003 the school opened our MST wing. We have 3 dedicated computer labs, 1 large workspace with computers, a middle school shop with band saws, drill presses, and sanders, a standard tech shop, and our own Robotics room with an old Bridgport Mill, a tig Welding area, and a small metal lathe. We have spent a lot of time this year getting the space organized exactly the way we want for build season.

I know we are lucky. It's nice because we can work on projects all year round and kids can do side projects during thier engineering classes and study halls. The wing was mainly built because of the successes of our PLTW classes and our FIRST team. At one point we had 3 teams working in this space, our 2 teams and a neighboring school that wasn't allowed to work in their school on weekends.

We have about 1200 students 9-12.

[plnyyanks]

for a long time, 1124 was lucky enough to have some warehouse space in a nearby factory, and last year, we had the entire place to ourselves. now, though, the leaser (that a word?) of the building says we can't be there any more. now, the hunt is on for a new space

[Cyberphil]

Originally Posted by plnyyanks

for a long time, 1124 was lucky enough to have some warehouse space in a nearby factory, and last year, we had the entire place to ourselves. now, though, the leaser (that a word?) of the building says we can't be there any more. now, the hunt is on for a new space

Well, I wish you the best of luck with that. I cannot imaging having to move all of the equipment and tools you guys have. I hope you find a place, and I hope it fits all of your needs!

[dag0620]

I've been meaning to post in this thread for a while, but for some reason never got around to it.

1071 first off has our build space at our school. First off we have our own shop. Originally when our school had a metal shop program, our team operated out of a closet in the wood shop. When the metal shop program got discontinued, they were about to take away the shop and renovate it into something else. We the team however had told them we still needed the machine, so the school gave us half of the existing metal shop (its a big room) along with all the tools and supplies, and machines left over from the shop. (The other half of the room is now the nurses/medical classes room).

In addition to building out of the metal shop, we also still use our schools wood shop. Since we retained our closet in it, we get a lot of use out of it. Since it is bigger and we have more space, the final robot assembly normally takes place here, as well as any wood working that needs to take place. It really becomes an extension of our shop, espically on weekends and vacations when we don't need to pack up.

The best thing about our team, is that in addition our room, and the wood shop, we are the only group at WHS that has a complete run of the Building. Thats right, if there is a room in the high school that we need to use, we can use it. This really is what makes the team happen.

Rooms we often use are:
- Auditorium (has a large open space in the back about half an FRC field) for running the robot/programming
- Graphics Lab - Photoshop/video work that needs to be done
- CAD Lab - some CAD work done, but mostly used just as a computer lab/office for chairmans team, business team, and for the all the paperwork with WIWI
-Misc Classrooms - In addition to our head mentors classroom, we use other area classrooms to conduct meetings and training sessions, as well as weekend lunches.

And as I said before, If it's a room our high-school has, we can probably more then likely use it.

I must say we are one lucky team!!

[dbeckwith]

Our team uses an old workshop that was used for auto repair classes in previous years, and occasionally we head down the hall to the woodshop to use the drill press and such. Our problem though is that the room is way too small, and we can only really use half of it because the biotech class has all their stuff in the room as well.
Nothing fancy at all, but we are second years with no funding, so that's expected.

[plnyyanks]

Originally Posted by Cyberphil

Well, I wish you the best of luck with that. I cannot imaging having to move all of the equipment and tools you guys have. I hope you find a place, and I hope it fits all of your needs!

we didn't have everything in that place, it was more of a practice field and not building area (at least in my experience there), but that practice field will be missed

[Cyberphil]

Originally Posted by plnyyanks

we didn't have everything in that place, it was more of a practice field and not building area (at least in my experience there), but that practice field will be missed

Well, at least that is good. Good luck anyway!

103 had a huge stroke of luck about 7 years ago now.

We had to use one of our schools full gyms during the season. Every night our team would set up a part of the field in the gym, and at the end of the night we had to take it down so it could be used the next day. There were huge complications with our football team and practicing in that gym, so the school board (with the football teams money) Built us that barn I was talking about before, with a full sized field in it and cabinets lining one of the long walls. That building has been a gigantic help over the years, saving us thousands of hours of time of setting up and taking down.

[EgROS]

In years past, we have always built in the garage of one of our mentors. This year, we have rented a small commercial space in the back of a shopping strip near our school.

[ericzundel]

Team 1795 has met in various closets and classrooms in the school for the past four years. We feel fortunate to have been given the HVAC closet, because a) it is bigger than the classroom closets and b) it won't move each year with the coach's classroom. My goal is to get heavy enough equipment in that room so that the administration will never be able to move us again!

This year we are fortunate to have the Freeside Atlanta hackerspace as a sponsor. They have a warehouse space with lots of tables set up and some woodworking and machine tools.



they have this beatiful lathe too

[Bryan Herbst]

2052 has been meeting in our school's CAD lab (attached to the woodshop) for about 3 years now.

We get an average sized walk-in closet to store our equipment in, we can (usually) use the woodshop for whatever we need, and we get free reign on the computers so long as we are following the district's computer use policy.

We have been outgrowing our closet (and the computers are an incredibly huge distraction), so we have explored other options, but we will likely be in this room for a number of years to come.

[Grim Tuesday]

Rooms E16 and E11 at the school

[SuburBot]

Hello,
My team (the MHS SuburBots) works in one of the classrooms in the science hallway of our school. Since there are only ten members (half of which are either goofballs or control freaks) and four mentors (only two of which show up on a regular basis), it feels like too much space most of the time. This feeling has only increased since they added a smart-board (which those goofballs were quick to discover was excellent at playing mini-clip games) at the end of last year.
As for storage, we have six cabinets locked and reserved for us, along with a backroom where what's left of past years' robots rests.
The best thing about the room is all the power outlets. There are two at every table, along with dozens along the walls and above the counters. We're never short on places to plug laptops into.

[rcmolloy]

1647 uses Seneca High School to house most our equipment and robotics needs. We have a electrical room, CAD room, broadcast/photo room, woodshop, auto shop, and cafeteria that comes to good use. In the electrical room, most of the robot build goes on in here. Also, there is a small closet where most of our things are stored during the season. In the CAD room, most of the design and programming is done here. The broadcast/photo room is where our videos are produced and the website is built. The woodshop and autoshop is only used to cut materials for prototypes or the robot. Lastly, the cafeteria is where we eat lunch on Saturdays (...obviously) and practice driving when we don't have a field to practice on. (Dustin )

[Sarah2729]

Wow...I never realized there was such a variety for meeting locations! It's really wonderful that so many sponsors and local businesses are willing to lend space to area teams during build season!

Team 2729 is fortunate to be able to use classrooms in one of the two high schools our team members are from. Students from the other school (which is in the same district) are bused over after school. For the most part, we have each group (electrical, mechanical, marketing, etc) in a different classroom.

Additionally, on occasion, we get together with some of the other local teams to discuss ideas and practice for upcoming competitions!