I’m a co-lead mentor on a community FTC team. We’ve run the team for 9 seasons and have had several temporary homes. For the past three years, we’ve worked out of my house. My 250 SF garage doubles as the workshop and practice space and the programmers work out of my dining room. This is better than nothing but is holding the team back. Two big issues are the garage is too small to build and set up the field at the same time. Our workbenches are folding tables and we need to put away our tools and parts and take the tables down to get the field up. Even then, there’s not enough room for driver’s boxes and the kids have to stand inside the field to practice.
It’s a real momentum killer to switch back and forth. Second, the garage is unheated, so after Thanksgiving meetings are an uncomfortable affair.
I’m looking for suggestions to find the team more space to either practice or ideally host the whole process. Here’s the list of what we’ve tried unsuccessfully so far:
Local High/Middle Schools - Despite years of trying our local schools are uninterested in the FIRST program and have been unwilling to grant space to outside organizations.
FRC Teams - The closest community FRC team is over an hour round trip and then have a decidedly anti-FTC bias.
Library - Our local library system offers free meeting spaces, but doesn’t offer anything permanent. Signups are on a first-come-first-serve basis and signups typically fill up 3-4 months in advance. We’ve tried it and schlepping the field over and back, setup & breakdown time are worse momentum killers than the garage.
Makerspaces - The closest makerspace to us is also an hour plus round trip and charges fees.
Other STEM organizations - There are a few in our area geared towards the elementary school age that host FLL, but none have space to offer an FTC team.
If there are some obvious targets I’ve missed, public or private, please let me know.
Have you approached nearby community groups like Boys & Girls Clubs, Churches, etc? Granted, they might impose requirements that you aren’t able or comfortable complying with but it could be worth asking.
As far as I can tell, this is denhac. Even if they can’t help you directly, I suggest reaching out to them to see if they know of any opportunities for space near you.
The FTC and FRC teams I mentor used to be school teams. Over COVID, the FTC team worked out of one of the mentor’s basement. They made a terrific robot and performed far better than in previous seasons, but it was not sustainable, and after another year at the school we went independent.
What ended up happening for us is that the local university (a big state school) hooked us up with unused space in one of their research buildings. It’s been working out very well for so far. Had that not worked, we were also working on some possibilities with an automation company and with the local 4-H.
Looking at Google Maps, I see a few small universities and a bunch of automation companies around the airport on the northwest side of Parker, CO. If that’s close enough for your team, there may be people there who have interest in helping, and the resources to help, your team.
Have we approached local community groups? There are no boys & Girls or YMCA in the area. We did outreach to 4-H in our county, but no interest. We currently have two team members in 4-H the next county over. There was interest from them, but at a half-hour drive, to their building, was not a feasible option. We also have students in the Boy Scouts but weren’t able to piggyback on their charter organization.
DENHAC - We’ll reach out and see if they can offer any leads.
Small Universities & automation companies - We’ll look into those. We can’t look too far into the metro area though. We already have kids driving a half hour from out east just to get to our house. Adding another 15 minutes to get further into the city might be a stretch.
Take your case to the parks department, sometimes they have indoor spaces. The Chamber of Commerce might have ideas on who in town has meeting space.
Know your must haves, would like to have, availability needs. Can you pack up and totally vacate at the end of each season, what does your calendar look like? Also have the community benefits ready to go. How many and who are they serving. Where are your students coming from? What do they get out of participating in the program.