Lately I’ve been trying to solve the problem of most teams not having a field to practice on in the SF Bay Area, especially because my team is one of them.
One idea I’ve had is to build a group of teams who all join forces and rent a building to house a field and split the costs. 299 is renting a building this year as our shop for ~33k, and it’s roughly field sized. We figure a place that could hold a field comfortably would be ~40k to ~45k in the area, which while too much for any one team, is completely achievable if a sizeable group of teams split the costs. It’s not nothing, but I’d be willing to bet there’s at least 15 teams or so in the area who would be interested in spending $3000 a year for a practice field they have access to and partially own.
Does anyone know if this has been done before? Any thoughts on the feasibility of something like this?
I’m fairly sure FIRST-WA did this in Washington state, but this would have been a few years back. I’ll have to see if I can dig up the emails from when we investigated this in Pittsburgh about 10 years back.
The Peninsula STEM Gym is a shared practice facility for competitive youth STEM teams in Newport News, VA. It is operated by 2363’s nonprofit booster organization Intentional Innovation Foundation.
So far, other local teams have primarily contributed to the gym via in-kind donations, such as:
– labor to reconfigure, clean, and outfit the facility
– lumber to build the mockup field elements
We were unable to entice other local FRC teams to contribute by way of a membership/use fee.
We didn’t consider the shared ownership concept… But in a sense we did, because we expanded the board membership of IIF to include one representative (so far) of another Hampton Roads team.
We can afford to do this because of the incredible support of our stakeholder community. Still, we are seeking to recognize a title sponsor for the Gym, which may enable us to move the concept to a better facility. Our current space has no heat, little parking, water ingress, low ceilings, and other issues.
Our annual budget for the Gym is ~$14k, of which ~11k is rent & utilities.
It has. A couple years ago FIRST Upper Midwest secured a grant from the MN Government to fund the purchase of 5 AndyMark fields. We put out an RFP for community organizations around MN - they had to show donations that matched the funds from the state, if I remember correctly. The fields were just starting to come on-line when the pandemic hit. You can read about the grant awards here: https://firstuppermidwest.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/FUM-CRH-Grant-Release-Jan-16-2020.pdf
@Doug_Frisk may have some insight into what went into the Duluth field, and the path it’s taken with hosting space so far.
Even before this, the MURA (Minneapolis Urban Robotics Alliance) field was running for several years. There was an old, unused school with a gym they could use, funding from some local companies to support it, and wooden field border/elements. Open only specific days/times, with teams needing to register ahead of time. Open to anyone, although there is a once-per-season custodial fee for the teams.
I actually took a survey of 16 teams a few years ago relating to this topic. The questions were basically trying to determine how much interest there was in a shared field based on distance of the field from the team. I would classify these teams as some of the better funded teams in Minnesota.
$3000 in the SF Bay Area is very different than $3,000 in Minnesota, so keep that in mind… but in general I was surprised at how little teams valued a shared practice field.
Very interesting. Do you think many of those teams have some way of practicing at their own shop, even if it’s just using a carpeted room and setting out field elements? I’m wondering if it’s an issue of money or demand with your case.
It was a pretty wide range of teams. Most definitely would’ve had small carpeted areas they would’ve been able to use for practice in their own shops. A couple had reasonable access to a different team’s existing field (now defunct). Overall though very few of the 16 teams would’ve had anything close to the quality of a shared practice area like what’s being presented here.
$3000 to get the space for a practice field I have to share with 14 other teams? The challenge here is that elite teams willing to spend that much wouldn’t want to jockey for space with 14 other teams, deal with the logistical headaches / repairs / etc. Meanwhile the teams that need it the most can’t really afford $3000 unless that money included all the field elements and carpet they didn’t necessarily have to build.
This could easily be a case of where money / costs in the bay area are totally different, but I think many teams would prefer to spend that 3K on carpet and some field elements they drag into the school gym a couple times a year.
This is specifically why I think this idea could work - a vast majority of teams around here don’t have this as an option. Space around here is tight, and many teams are confined to a closet or classroom, and even those with a nicer build space tend to not have carpet or a place for practice that isn’t just bringing field elements outside their shop (and forget about having a flat surface or testing auto in a realistic setting).
A few fields exist in the area owned by other teams (most of them partial fields), and while the generosity of these teams is greatly appreciated, they can only support so many teams at a time, and pre-covid it was already nearly impossible to get a practice space slot as they would fill up almost instantly.
It can be done. We have been self sustaining so far with our organization “the Arrowhead Robotics Coalition” doing all the fundraising and funding for the field. The problem for us with setting a fee is we want to serve all the teams in NE Minnesota and a large number of our teams have an annual budget of whatever is in the coach’s wallet.
We did have a semi-permanent site in 2020, but for 2022 we’ve literally been setting up the field on the weekends at area schools. It’s been a huge amount of work, but it’s been really good for getting the teams involved with each other. We need to coordinate warehouse space for our 2023 field next July before it all gets filled up storing people’s boats.
One bit of advice I’d give is to make sure that you structure your field so it’s not associated with any one team. You don’t want teams thinking you’re just someone’s chairman’s project.
This is us rolling into Itasca Community College in Grand Rapids MN last week.
We ended up buying it. It can be rented for roughly $50/stick/week. FIRST added the 4 foot, 5 foot, corner cubes, and cheese-boroughs to the evergreen field elements this year so we took the risk that it will be reused in the future.
Plus as I also like to say, if a Laser Floyd show breaks out I’m set!
I should add, it is and isn’t the same truss FIRST uses. FIRST’s buys Total Structures 12" generic box truss. We purchased from a company called Generico out of New Jersey. It’s the same physical dimensions, but the load ratings on the truss we bought are about 80% of what the Total Structures truss is rated. I suspect that for the most part it’s just as strong, but Total Structures x-rays their welds and Generico doesn’t. Given the difference is being able to support 6 robots from a single point on a 30 foot span or 5 robots I’m not worried about our truss breaking under the use we put it to.
$3k seems steep for the number of hours I’d expect to spend on it, if we’re sharing with 14 other teams. But it’s hard for me to judge since my team has a decent amount of space, if we literally had no field elements of our own or space to roll out a little carpet maybe I’d feel differently.
They have used trusses enough that I think buying was a good choice.
In the seasons they don’t use them (and your not touring) you can set up a banging sound system with the field.
If there’s many teams in your area who have the same sponsor, have you considered asking if that sponsor would have space to house a field between January and May?
It’s not ideal, but that would at least alleviate the cost of renting a space.
Let’s say that most teams would be able/want to take advantage of a field from about 4:00pm-9:00pm (6 hrs) on weekdays and 9:00am-9:00pm (12 hrs) on weekends.
That means the number of useful hours the field is available is 54 hours per week. We can say six teams can use the field at a time, keeping in mind that’s not always ideal and maybe not possible during a pandemic. So that’s 324 available hours. Over 15 teams = 21.6 hours/week, or 86.4 hours/month. Let’s say four months of use…345.6 hours.
At a cost of 3k per team per month, that comes out to a cost of roughly $9/hour to use the field, if teams get the absolute maximum benefit out of it.
For easy rounding, let’s say $200/week gets you 21 hours of play time. That seems worthwhile a few times throughout the season, but not necessarily to keep up that cost for the entirety of build and competition season, committing for four months.
I also wouldn’t want to be the person that deals with collecting rent checks from 15 teams, nor the person that schedules shared use time.
I know real estate in the bay area is more than a premium, but I also feel that the more cost effective path would be to find a sponsor willing to donate the space. If you have 15 teams at your disposal, use them all to identify a potential space, and then the teams would only have to share the materials cost. I also think a community-shared field is a better investment for a sponsor as they build relationships with so many more teams.
