Hi Everyone! Hope I posted in the right place.
Tonight, my team is going to be asking our Board of Education for some more on-site space, and I had a question.
How does everyone find additional work space? Is it through the school, a mentor, or a sponsor? 1089 is looking for more work space close to us, and I was just wondering if any teams who have had experience with this could share some information.
Thanks everyone! 
We just always started leaving stuff in another classroom. Example: If we donât have enough room for the bot in the drafting room, we leave it in the machine shop. Eventually the machinist make us a bit of room there.
Simple, and effective.
when we started off we worked in our sponsorâs facility near ottowa lake in michigan and stayed there until 08 when we were moved to another, smaller facility in maumee ohio and at the end of this year we were told our space is being taken over and we werenât going to be provided space. Since then, we scrounged up some space at our school. basically all we had to do was talk to the school director and we worked it out from there.
Weâve pretty much taken over our entire basement in the school. 3 machine shops down there, a CAD and testing room, allowed use of basement storage and an office, more storageâŚ
Mr. G is probably doing right by asking your BOE first and then maybe moving onto asking nearby teams and maybe BMS.
Good luck, and let me know if you guys need anything.
Our team has taken over our coaches basement. One small room is the workshop and the rest of the space is divided by a large FRC room with minimal space for building as it is stuffed with materials and supplies. The rest of the space is a good sized FLL room with the computers and our meeting space (No FRC building is allowed in this room).
With such limited space, one of our sponsors Cirtronics has donated space for us to practice. It is a LARGE room with random supplies in some areas and lots of open space. It is Speed Racers heaven!
And old robots are stored in the attic above the garage.
In our starting years, we built at the school. Generally we had a small-ish storage room for tools and parts and we used a classroom after school for building, but everything had to be put back in the store room.
A couple years later, we got a larger room to work in Motorola, about the size of a small classroom, but the adjacent presentation hall was almost never occupied and we had a computer room. So we had A LOT of space at the motorola facility.
Then after realizing that some people could not make it to the facility, we moved back to school. We have the same, small storage space to work, but we have a small machine shop and two rooms after school and on weekends.
EDIT: I totally didnât answer your question. :D. Sponsors can be a big help with space and machine shop work, but if not, then the school is a good bet. I would say that if you need more room, ask your sponsor to see whatâs available after school. Donât get caught on the fact that youâd have to clean up after each build. We did that almost every day for 6 weeks, so youâll have to compromise.
Team 1323 now has a full sized machine shop. A wood shop and autoshop that it can use. We also have a robotics lab and drafting room.
1323 started out its rookie year in a math teachers class room. We have been spreading robotics across our community for the past 7 years now. In order to get all the facilities we have now. We do many presentations for the school, Board of Education, and community. If you need help or have questions, send me a PM or Email.
I think it depends what kind of team you are. I know of community teams that rent spaces at strip malls. They are usually teams incorporated as a non-profit clubs.
If your coach is an Industrial Arts teacher, I am sure he/she can find you a place, otherwise many teams I know uses a closet space to store their stuff as mentioned by previous posters.
Companies that have robotics clubs for mentors, can pull information and identify teams that might be willing to share space, specially if you are a rookie team.
Marcos.
237 uses the cafe* but we have to drag everything out and then put it back at the end of the night in our storage closet. We do have use of a currently unused electronics classroom which used to be a buildings and grounds maintance class room that still has some older machinery in it. We donât use the old B+G stuff since we have access to the newer machines in the metals and woodshops.
237 was founded by the woodshop teacher who is now retired. Originally we had full use of the woodshop and could leave stuff out in there. That arrangement also came with a larger storage closet that was directly across the hall.
The church that runs 330âs school has been helpful for this sort of thingâŚ
1998- 2000, built in a building that was owned by the church. Then a tenant wanted more room.
2001, someone in the church got a place elsewhere.
2002-2006, someone else in the church got us into an old power plantâs basement machine shop.
2007- present, we build in a grocery store owned by the church. Weâre in one of the back rooms, but we do have kind of an open-door policyâif you stop by, weâll probably show you around (you might not see the super-secret widget for the year, but does anyone show that?).
1503 has always built out of our school. The school has generously given us two storage rooms, which are more than suitable to house 5 robots, and our piles of old parts, etc. Our machine shop is large enough to work out of comfortably, and robots live there during build season, as the robot kids in Manufacturing class get to make robot parts for their projects, occasionally. We also keep them there, while theyâre being built, for the sake of keeping parts together, and itâs just easier that way.
Our schoolboard gives us a room or two at a school that is either underpopulated or closed every year. In 5 years, weâve had 3 practice facilities. We share this with a couple nearby teams.
-Nick
1714 works, meets, and does everything in our head mentorâs plastic fabrication shop, American Acrylics. It undoubtedly takes some time and money from him, but weâre really glad heâs let us have the space. Heâs gotten a Volunteer of the Year award partly for that (and hopefully a WFFA in the future).
There are many benefits to this setup for us. We get access to mills, lathes, and all of that good stuff for machining. Polycarbonate sheet is on hand for assembly, as is acrylic for prototyping and templating. We have readily available access to a laser cutting tool that will etch and cut acrylic easily, which we use for everything from our peer awards to template making to the turret on this yearâs robot. By cutting acrylic sheet, we can attach the laser cut acrylic sheeting to polycarbonate and use a router to make faux-lazer cut polycarbonate sheets. This is how the side of the robot was made among many, many other parts.
Perhaps the least obvious benefit is that on snow days, common in Wisconsin, instead of being screwed out of a build day, we get 7 more hours to build in the shop!
All but our first year (2000) Our founding sponsor has provided us with storage and a machine shop. We were in the same place as 279, in an mostly unused room, until we got kicked out, because they were going to put offices in there, so we moved ~1.5Mi north (far) to their other building that was mostly empty, where we are now, and have our own âPersonalâ machine shop, and testing area. We also asked and got another room right next to it for the programming cave and wiring workbench
Hello All,
Here is a video of a rookie team, and their facility along with interview of 2 adults that has supported their efforts along the way :
This team is in the city, it is a Catholic school. They have been trying to form a team for at least one year until they were able to get a space. As you can see from the video this space is just for the robotics team. It took some time but they persevered. Some mentors from other teams even gave up on them saying things such as âthey got asbestos on the room, they wonât be able to make itâ or âthey lost their mentor, they wonât be able to make itââŚbut the students and their parents kept their faith.
A key to get space is to get support from the teachers and administration.
Before they had a room, the team âshadowedâ another teamâŚ
Cheers,
Marcos.
330 has a super-secret widget?!
sigh, drool, faint
Do you keep it in the freezer?
Only until they can successfully have it thawed.
1793 is lucky enough to have a principal that is at least 100% behind the team from the very beginning, and based at a school with a fabrication room off in a corner connected to the computer tech room. Fabrication room, not shop. We donât have any heavy machinery, but we do have Ed, our mentor and connection to the BAE Shipyard.
Nah, I think itâs kept in the fridge thatâs a room or two over from the freezer.
Or it might be in the freezer⌠depends what it is.
Then again, it might be in one of the programming rooms or upstairs in the loft area.
461 has its own tech shop which is our teacherâs and main mentorâs classroom⌠itâs actually 2 rather large rooms, one a shop with all the tools, the other - a classroom with white boards, seating, etc, which is also a computer lab for the classes he teaches⌠the shop has an exit to the outside where one of his classes built a shed to store old robots and such in⌠also, we have rented space to use for practice fields in the past, used our local elementary schoolâs gym, and our high school gyms also⌠you can always ask the other teams in the area for help also. weâve provided space for other teams in the past (and still do) and let them use our shop and other facilities for free
Thanks for all the replies, information, and support! Sorry Iâm late in replying.
The presentation seemed to go very well with a great reaction from our Board of Education. Hopefully weâll be able to get some more support.
Thanks again everyone for all the replies, hearing how teams work things out with mentors, communities, schools, and sponsors is a really great thing to hear. Thanks for sharing!
On Exploding Bacon the mentors draw straws for whoâs garage weâll be working in. College mentors who rent homes have to draw 2 straws.