As FRC Team 1640 prepares to head out to St. Louis, our excitement at attending our first Championship and winning our first Regional (Philadelphia) is tempered by concern for the team’s future.
As of mid-May, we will be without a home.
Team 1640 was founded in 2005 by a Downingtown High School physics teacher. Unfortunately, he was forced to leave the team in 2008 due to health problems. Recruiting another teacher has proven impossible. Non-teacher mentors and parents, however, have kept the team alive and growing. The team has launched fifteen middle school VEX teams and six elementary school FLL teams. The program now reaches over 150 students.
Without a teacher, the robotics program lost school club status. We incorporated (as Downingtown Area Robotics) in order to obtain our own liability insurance and to manage assets acquired by the team (primarily tools). We now operate and fundraise independently and are well-equipped for the challenges of FRC.
Throughout the seven years of the team’s existence, The Downingtown Area School District has graciously supported the robotics program by, among other contributions, providing a space where students could build and test robots.
Unfortunately, the School District has sold the building in which we currently operate and no longer has any space available for the robotics program. We must move out just after Championships.
Team 1640 is seeking space to enable us to continue to bring hands-on, robotics-based S.T.E.M. education to students in the Downingtown, Pennsylvania area.
Any assistance, advice or leads from the FIRST community would be sincerely appreciated.
good luck with your build space hunt, we have had to move in and out of build spaces every year since 2006 (been helping for the past 3 years) so i know how hard it is to find a new home. maybe guilt some sponsors in to letting you build somewhere of theirs for a year while finding a permanent space.
Our school did not completely understand the value of the robotics program in the beginning. We worked at the school our rookie year, well part of it anyways. The space we had was too small, we could not fit the robot our of the doorways. Our coach/teacher sponsor was gracious enough to let us build at her house. A few years later she retired, leaving us with no where to build. My parents were gracious enough to all the team to build at our house my senior year. Though when I graduated we were left to find another home. We then moved to another students house to build and he graduated like I did. So this year we are building at my house again since my brother will be a freshman.
So to sum up my rambling, look into possibly using a mentor’s exterior garage. Or look into the community for a co-op or to your sponsors. They may have some extra space they could allow your team to use. Good luck on your search.