Newport Robotics Group has been around since 2001 but for the very first time, thanks to Foushee and Associates and Alliance Contract Flooring, Inc, we have enough (free) carpet to setup a full practice field at our high school.  Last year we moved into a new school building that had huge expanses of tile floor but with no carpet on which to practice.  We thank our school's janitors for their profound patience last year as we left black marks all over the commons from our mecanum wheels, but now we won't have to worry about leaving any marks at all.  And now for the story of how we got this carpet...

 A parent on our team, Mr. Guymer, heard that we were looking for carpet with which to build a practice field at our school.  After a series of emails and communications, he was able to arrange for 200 square yards of 10 oz. gray commercial carpet to be brought to Newport at no cost to our team, thanks to Alliance Contract Flooring, Inc. and Foushee and Associates.  For a team willing to go dumpster-diving to get used carpet for free, this was very good news.

 At any rate, on Thursday morning I received a confirmation email saying that I could expect delivery of the carpet after school on Friday.  There was just one hitch: it came in one 12' long roll weighing in at 610 pounds.  Yeah, 610 pounds and it had to be carried from the second floor to the third floor where our storage was.  Needless to say, it took a little of our FIRST-inspired engineering creativity to devise a solution to this problem.  Ultimately, we decided to cut out of the one roll 2 12'x54' lengths of carpet and leaving the rest for making it longer or wider.

 Anyways, promptly at 2:30 on  Friday I received a call asking where we wanted the carpet dropped off.  Some moments later a white truck pulled into the drop-off at Newport and unloaded the roll of carpet.  After about a half hour of cutting and measuring the carpet sections, we had 3 200 pound rolls of carpet ready to be taken inside.

However, when the Newport Wrestling Team offered to carry the rolls up the stairs from the 2nd to the 3rd floors, we happily accepted their offer.  It was quite the scene:

 Because of the outstanding support of NRG by Foushee and Associates and Alliance Contract Flooring, Inc, clever planning by NRG students, and much-appreciated assist by Newport Wrestling, NRG is now well on its way to having its own practice field for the first time in the 2009 FRC season.

Thanks again Foushee and Associates and Alliance Contract Flooring, Inc and Newport Wrestling!