Hey folks -
I’m desperately trying to add a competition field into my workspace/classroom and it really won’t fit without seriously disrupting the space. Have any of you had any luck with any creative ways of putting a field in a small space and maybe building movable workbenches on top of it? Or multipurposing the field?
Basically, what have you done when you have no space but need the field accessible?
Thanks for any ideas, creative or otherwise 
Dave
Because the field is mirrored, you could put only one side down, so you would take 1/2 as much space, you wouldn’t be able to scrimmage, but you would still be able to do auto and practice driving.
Could you put the field in another classroom if possible? Then you could have a class for the field and a class for building robots
I’ve seen places that take the field apart at the corners (creating two L shape pieces) and then nest them into a corner. To set up, they push all the chairs to one side, put the L’s together to make a square, flop down the tiles and go. For years like this with center components, they leave the 4 tiles together with the center game elements.
I know this is an EDR thread, I’ve seen IQ teams just flip the board into a vertical position and stand it up against the wall. The EDR part is DONT DO THIS WITH THE 12’ FIELD. It’s not stable in that vertical position.
Finally got a dedicated room this year and have a full field, but did have to deploy a partial field prior.
If you have 8’x12’, making a 2/3 field will allow for practice and programming. You could put all 4 goals in place and have a sort of scrimmage field.
If you have 4’x12’, you can set up that amount of field and store another 4’x12’ of parts on top, then expand to 8’x12’ when needed. The 3 chunks (one alliance side, center towers, 4x12 perimeter “C”) would look like:
I’m not sure if this will apply to your teaching model but it’s how we manage the space.
We have a classroom for our after school program but too many teams to fit in that classroom. The room holds a field, tool bench, and parts inventory along with a few desks for programming. When our students arrive they grab a banquet table and their robot, and bring it out into a common area to work. At the end of the practice their work-space gets cleaned up and stored back in the classroom. It has worked well and we have had as many as 35 teams in our program but meeting on different nights.
@DRow I know there’s a thread that’s almost identical to this if you want to merge it
Greetings! I was wondering about what size of a space are you working with as I had the same problem in my old high school; however, I would hate to give you an idea that you couldn’t use could you provide just a little more detail? (Such as the space you have available as well as how much you are willing to spend in raw materials to create a multi-purpose field?
Ya, like what @Knightmare_Hank said, maybe u can post a floorplan of the room along with where everything is currently
These are great suggestions – some collective feedback rather than answering all of them one at a time. First, thank you to everyone for even trying to help
tl;dr; Has anyone come up with a way to use the field space for anything ELSE without messing up the field? By covering, concealing, hoisting it to the ceiling on cables 
…
Thanks!
Dave
I could see a situation where a field with a small aluminum frame underneath it, with enough strength to support tiles, robots, humans and such on it while it is on the ground. Then on your cable idea the aluminum frame would be to keep the tiles supported while hoisted and towers(and any game pieces which reach above the field wall) would be detached and laid across the field. Cubes would be stored in a separate box, or if the frame is strong enough you could just leave them on the field without worry.
I dont know how feasible this is, but given your situation this could be a pretty ideal solution.
@FARobotics …hoisting it to the ceiling on cables
Actually…
The first few seconds of this reveal show a workspace that uses this idea:
I mean if you want to go for it, that’s a real option.
We put a tarp over our field and have all the field elements on “quick swap” meaning everything could be easily removed. You’re gonna have to compromise and constantly put cubes away and back on the field but it allows us to have a full field.
If your room can hold a full field but you want to make the most of the space, then what I did in the past may be of use to you. When I was in high school, we built a platform that was 30" tall (since that is what the fields are at worlds). It was made with plywood and 12’ 2x4. We built the foundation as if one would place studs on a wall, so we had nine studs in total along a whole length (2 on the very ends with 16" spacing measured from the middle of the stud). We did that 5 times, then put them together with 4 4x8 sheets of plywood as well as 1 4x4 sheet of plywood in the middle. This way the bottom of the field could be used as storage and could be modified as well to have additional sheets that could fold down the sides to provide students with tables that extend out as well. In addition, if the whole field were to ever need to be taken down, then the field could (and built foundation) could easily be collapsed for compact storage.
@FARobotics
We put ours’ in the floor. That way,
we can easily slide the feild to a different place quickly
Thanks Hank - This is exactly the kind of thing I had in mind… some way to dual-purpose the physical thing. Storage was going to be another huge concern, so you’re right , using the underside is excellent. Did you have any issues with kids up on the lifted field? Falling? Dropping things? I love the idea of having panels on hinges that flip up for workspaces… might play around in OnShape tonight with a couple of ideas.
Thank you all for getting my head in the right space!
Our robotics workshop is very compact - so we have lots of storage under field for running events, robot storage etc…
When it came to working with the raised field, we never had any issues with students falling off of it. In fact, we even had some members working on the robot that preferred to work in the field. The only thing is that sometimes during practice we would have some game elements fall out, but they never broke since they are often made with the intent of being dropped from small heights anyways.
P.S Horseplay on the field was strictly forbidden which also led to the spotless record of having no one fall off the field
Raised fields ZTP
Putting the field on top of tables and using the space underneath for storage
