Congrats 2009 NASA grant awardees

[yodameister]

Woot! Thank you NASA!

http://robotics.arc.nasa.gov/events/2009_sponsorship.php

[Lowfategg]

THANK YOU NASA!

:D (Jumping up and down)

[Akash Rastogi]

Congrats to Greg Needel and Team DeWalt XD

[Greg Needel]

Congrats to Greg Needel and Team DeWalt XD

haha...thanks.

Congrats to all who got the grants. I hope you all remember to say thank you for what you were given.

[sanddrag]

Congratulations to my former team, Team 696 the Circuit Breakers. You are an outstanding group of folks with a great team! :) I wish you a most successful year!

[Rich Kressly]

Congrats to all that applied ... and thank you NASA for the opportunity to apply. Rookies with grants - don't forget you need to meet criteria (like Chairman's Award documentation) if you plan to apply next year for NASA funds. :)

...and in reading the details at the award page:
"As part of the grant award, NASA will cover shipping expenses for the 2009 FRC control system to be shipped to all NASA-sponsored teams prior to the season kick-off. FIRST has been requested to send the FRC control system to each grant award team, at NASA expense, unless you specifically inform NASA and FIRST that you do NOT want to receive it."

Classy move NASA. Taking on the extra expense to make sure all recipients that want/need early controls shipment get it is a very, very nice touch. If you have not yet written your thank you for the opportunity to apply (that means even if you DIDN"T receive a grant, a thanks is in order too), please send one asap!

[TheOtherGuy]

Woot! Thank you NASA!

http://robotics.arc.nasa.gov/events/2009_sponsorship.php

Woo! Congrats, Mr. H ;) You're off to a good start this year!
Make us proud in NY with that grant, got it?

[Coach Norm]

Thank you NASA.

Team 2468 considers itself in such great company in looking at the teams who also qualified.

Norman

[waialua359]

To Mr. Dave Lavery and NASA,
Our team humbly accepts this award and will gladly fulfill the requirements as specified in the grant.

-Hawaiian Kids Team 359 :D :D :D

[Stephen Kowski]

Thank You NASA!

[AdamHeard]

WOW, we are extremely surprised and grateful we received a grant.

THANK YOU NASA!

[Chris Fultz]

Team 234 says "THANK YOU"!

We are excited to put "NASA" on our robot!

[Chris Fultz]

And congrats to Team 45 - It will be an "Indiana Invasion"

:)

[Travis Hoffman]

WOW, we are extremely surprised and grateful we received a grant.

THANK YOU NASA!

It seems quite a few 3+ year vet teams received program growth grants this year relative to last year (http://robotics.arc.nasa.gov/events/2008_sponsorship.php). I won't venture a guess as to why this is the case, but it does underscore the fact that it doesn't hurt to apply if you are a veteran team - you may be rewarded for your effort.

Congratulations to NEOFRA rookie Teams 2835, Liberty High School (one of 3 such "Liberty" teams receiving grants this year) and 2901, Maplewood High School on being selected as grant recipients! And thank you, NASA!

[Chris_Elston]

And congrats to Team 45 - It will be an "Indiana Invasion"

:)

We are on the wait list, but it seems pretty DEEP.... ;-)

Thank you NASA! from Team 1501. A time when we are struggling the most. Thanks Mr. Lavery and NASA. We can't thank you enough.

[gren737]

Definitely big props to NASA, thanks! :D

Especially in a year when it is needed the most. Things are tough right now, and NASA coming through with such a large number of grants is a huge boost for all the teams that received them.

[Joe Matt]

haha...thanks.

Congrats to all who got the grants. I hope you all remember to say thank you for what you were given.

You can stop freaking out on Twitter now, eh? :P

[Rich Kressly]

Just a general reminder to those saying "thank you" here.

Don't forget to send a more formal thanks to:
Dr. James Green at this address...
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=654611&postcount=49

and, although I'm sure Dave will never say it, a note to the two who lead the entire Robotics Alliance Project is probably in order too:
http://robotics.nasa.gov/management.php

[JesseK]

And congrats to Team 45 - It will be an "Indiana Invasion"

:)

Bring it on! ;)

A big thanks to NASA! I'll pass the official 'thank you' avenues on to the DC Rookies tonight.

[Robyn Needel]

Congratulations from Team 768 to everyone who got rookie and continuing grants! We look forward to seeing you at competitions :-)

[Andy Baker]

And congrats to Team 45 - It will be an "Indiana Invasion"

:)

The TechnoKats are very excited about this. Thank you to Dave and NASA for extending this grant to a veteran team. The team is pumped about the trip to DC, seeing some old friends, and making many new ones.

Sincerely,
Andy Baker
team 45 mentor

[dlavery]

(dual posting with apologies, to make the point about not calling FIRST unless necessary)

Congratulations to all the teams that have been selected to receive NASA Challenge Grants and NASA Program Growth Grants. Your participation in the grant application and selection process - by all teams, regardless of selection status - is gratefully appreciated. The generally high quality of the applications received shows your enthusiasm and excitement for the FIRST program and the positive results that your teams bring to your schools and communities. You make us proud to be a part of the process.

For all the teams that have been selected to receive a grant award, I want to draw your attention to one particular note. As stated on the grant announcement page ( http://robotics.arc.nasa.gov/events/2009_sponsorship.php ), "NASA will cover shipping expenses for the 2009 FRC control system to be shipped to all NASA-sponsored teams prior to the season kick-off. FIRST has been requested to send the FRC control system to each grant award team, at NASA expense, unless you specifically inform NASA and FIRST that you do NOT want to receive it." FIRST has already received many phone calls this morning asking what teams have to do to receive the control system. If you DO want do receive the control system early, you don't need to do anything - we will take care of it for you. Please do not call FIRST unless you do NOT want to receive the control system.

For the applications that were not selected, you may want to review the post Travis Hoffman referenced in another thread at http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=653041&postcount=45. Although written for last year's process, virtually all of the comments are still true and valid. We cannot provide a public response for why any one particular application was or was not selected. But that post summarizes many of the issues that were encountered during the evaluation process that prevented us from selected many of the applications. In particular, the discussion concerning the submission of the Chairman's Award and entrance/exit survey data should be reviewed. Not completing all of the obligations agreed to when a team received a grant in 2008 was the most frequent issue we encountered during the 2009 grant evaluation process.

-dave




.

[ComradeNikolai]

Anxiety's done;
We got our grant, thankfully.
This battle is won.

[nlknauss]

Team 2729 also has to express our gratitude towards the committee for selecting us as a Grant recipient.

Good luck to all of the other rookie teams this year. We can't wait to see many of you and the other teams at the Capitol Regional this year. We're all going to have an awesome time!

[joshsmithers]

YES! I am so in love with NASA now. (as if I wasn't already.....)

[Mark Holschuh]

Fondy Fire is sincerely grateful to Dave Lavery, Dr. James Green and everyone at NASA for your continued support for our program. We cannot thank you enough!

Congratulations to all the recipient teams, especially our friends on Lancer Robotics 2437, Herobotics 2500, and our new friends on FORT Robotics 2826.

[smcmahon]

As a second year team who had basically NO budget last year, getting this grant is... well, it's HUGE. Thanks to NASA for reviewing our application. It's truly an honor to be receiving both the funding and the opportunity to call NASA a partner of this team. We humbly accept and will do our best to make all of our partners proud to support Team 2656.

Special thanks to Mr. Matthew Kohler, Dominic Grieco, Christian Richardson, and our Team Captain Katia Paramonova for all their hard work on the grant application. Without them, none of this would have been possible.

Spasiba.