Our school is going through construction of our Tech Ed section, and while that’s great for new and more advanced tools and a larger workspace, it also means we’re going to lose our primary workspace starting in March. We’re team 1259, and we’re located in the lower half of Wisconsin. Does anyone have any ideas as to places where we can try to relocate?
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With this taking place in March and during competition season where you may be in good shape with a robot, I would suggest reaching out to the Milwaukee Robotics Academy https://www.milwaukeeroboticsacademy.org/ who has a dedicated field space not too far away from you to see if/when you could practice at their space.
Have your team reach out to your FIRST Senior Mentors also.
Good luck to 1259 this season.
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Team 537 Charger Robotics and some of Paradigm Shifts mentors chatted a little bit about this back at the end of last season in 7-rivers but should renew conversation - construction timelines were not finalized back then as I remember.
We might be able to share our space the few nights a week we meet or at least have you over to practice as we will be regularly setting up our field.
Have a mentor reach out (YPP), to us (I might be the most active on CD?, [email protected] works too) and let’s keep you guys going this season!
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There are more possibilities than you might imagine. We spent our Covid year in a corner of a friend of a friend’s Morton Bldg. Bonus: Barn Kitties!
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Sorry to hear about your team’s workspace conditions. This can be challenging as the season is on the verge of kick-off. As the mentor of 8793, a team that’s built in 4 to 5 different locations over 3 seasons I can share some options that worked for us.
Prior to a complete re-location, I’d suggest working with the school on an alternate on-site location (it avoids any moving logistics).
- Local construction spaces.
- Another school (middle school).
- Community spaces (Boy and Girls Club, 4H, etc).
- Mentor’s garages.
- Sponsor spaces.
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In 2017 while our building was undergoing construction, we wound up being shoved into 2 random classrooms. While not ideal we were able to make it work, using one as the “clean room” for cad/programmers, and the other as the “mess room” where we kept all the tools and worked out of. This was a bit nice in being able to have a more quiet room as well, but the mess room also was fully carpeted and was a pain to clean constantly.
I know some teams have be relegated to random rooms and push everything aside at the end of the day. Not sure if you’re able to work with the school on a temporary workspace for the last couple weeks of build/competition season. If there’s an area of a gym, auditorium or other large room to utilize and then pack down at the end of the meeting?
Ucgh, I feel you man, starting next summer through fall they’re re-arranging our shop to make it ADA compliant. Which will eventually be great, we will finally be able to get the robot in and out without hitting every machine in the dang shop while rolling it through, and we’re getting more table surface space.
Aside from not having access during the offseason, the school has a history of taking way longer than expected on projects. A few years ago they were supposed to take 2 weeks to fix something with the shop roof, and ended up taking 6 months.
So we’re basically anticipating stealing our two OMIOs, tool chests of our stuff, and working out of a mentor’s garage for a season.
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Whatever you do, if you move offsite, PLEASE have your district insure whatever space you work in. Especially if you move into a family’s garage. No one should lose their home over an accident when it’s easy for the district to cover y’all if you make a point of preemptively asking for the insurance. Good luck you!
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Since Pewaukee High School is located almost next to Waukesha County Technical College (WCTC), you could just move there. If you can find a space there, you should be okay. We also had the roof above our shop replaced, and once, it rained, and then the room started leaking through the skylight. So we had to cover up our drill press and our converted band saw so that the internal components would not be damaged. The roof work was only finished on December 14, so everything is back to normal. Until the roof leaks again…
I would suggest making a post in 4322’s OA thread. Sadly they lost their main work area and have been looking for a new space for months. While they are still looking they may be able to give you some tips on how to operate out of your main space during the construction
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@mtareen Milwaukee Robotics Academy if its not to long of a trip. Please have a mentor reach out to me for details.
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Greetings from the Upper Half of Wisconsin!
A few years back we made the decision to move our build space from the high school to the middle school. I suggest you look into this as a temporary measure. No new insurance issues, and while you probably won’t have the latest toys you may find, as we did, that middle school tech ed departments are less compartmentalized.
Hope the tech ed rebuild at your HS goes well. That is not always the case, which was part of our move…
5826
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+1 to working out of a different building in the same school district. For us it is luckily connected to the high school, but we don’t have access to the high school equipment so most equipment has been purchased by the team.
Also if you are losing manufacturing capabilities, look into the Production Hub that the FIRST Wisconsin SBOD has started: https://www.firstinspireswi.org/about-3
We think our move to the middle school is going to be permanent. To the extent that we’ve started writing grants for “toys” that we donate to the District. Shopsabre 23 router last summer, and a cnc plasma cutter on the way. Helps our middle school recruiting a lot. Don’t have as many HS walk ons though… We are a short distance from the HS, an easy walk.
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Hey there! My name is Andrew, and I’m a mentor with teams 1306 and 10553. Both of our shops have good capabilities for manufacturing. I know we’re not terribly close to you (70ish minutes), but if there’s any machining your team needs or any other way we can help, please let me know and I can help coordinate those efforts. Both teams are happy to help in any way we can.
It sounds like others here have recommended good solutions for temporary work spaces. If you ever need a day to do some drive practice or otherwise, our doors are always open.
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