Angela Roth asked: > tables that would take less room? Any thoughts on that one? During my time as coach, we ran into this regularly, too. We used two compromise(d?) solutions :-): 1. We didn't have a practice table at our school--only a "table top" constructed as you'd expect, but without legs or a light. We would move it in and out of school rooms depending on where we were meeting and just set it on top of two regular school tables. Imperfect, sure, but manageable. Still too heavy (and too big) to be easily transported between sites, however--works OK if you can't leave it up permanently, but can store it some place vertical in the same building. Also, they are easier to build (just leave out lots of steps for a regulation table :-)). 2. In a pinch, we used 3 2x4's of wood (one cut in half) and some duct tape (!). The pieces were never permanently attached to each other, but they are sized to form the four sides of a regulation table top. We would take our mat + wood + duct tape to locations where we needed a really portable setup, and just use hard floor space (or even a conference room table, in some cases). Lay out the mat, place the edges, add a little duct tape to hold the corners together, and you're done. Easy to set up and take down, manageable for one person to carry, and can be transported in lots of different vehicles (even a car, if you're willing to have a 2x4 end sticking out your window :-)). If you want, you can screw another small section of 2x4 to one of the long pieces to provide better support for the model that "straddles" the top center rail. Typically, the wood is heavy enough so the robot won't move the wall--the kids will, though. And alignment of the mat within the wall is probably different every time. Its not for precision work, but it will do if that is all you have (and some seasons, it was!). You'd be surprised how effective it can be. We've even had some teams do at least some of their practicing with just the mat and nothing else (no walls) ... spread over *carpet* and not hard floor. Yes, it is far from perfect as far as repeatable robot performance goes, but there are many, many problems the kids can still solve under those conditions, and many of these come up long before they ever get to the point where "horrid table conditions" are the dominant factor in their progress. Or at least that is my opinion (and experience) ;-). -- Steve --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Virginia Tech, CS Dept. Web-CAT: Web-based Center for Software Testing 114 McBryde Hall (0106) Automatic grading using student-written tests Blacksburg, VA 24061 USA http://web-cat.org/ (540)-231-5723 http://people.cs.vt.edu/~edwards/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE or CHANGE your settings, please visit https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-l.html and select "Join or leave the list". -- VADCFLL administrative announcements are sent via VADCFLL-ANNOUNCEMENTS-L. Visit https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-ANNOUNCEMENTS-l.html to subscribe.