Re: 2016 NASA Grant Announcement Day
 

Unfortunately my tear didn't get it. Congrats to the winners!

Re: 2016 NASA Grant Announcement Day
 

I can't see the NASA list and don't see any deposits for Team 3319 in TIMS- does this mean for sure we didn't get one? We applied for a Rookie Regional grant for Rocket City... KK

I guess not the page loaded I got excited then I was disappointed our team wasn't there then I realized there was no tech valley tab. I also noticed there was only 1 ny team on the list.

Re: 2016 NASA Grant Announcement Day
 

Thank you NASA from rookie team 5920 the VIKotics. This will help a lot, we are a small high school (82) in a small town (1040) with limited fund raising opportunities. This will give us the ability to compete in 2016 while we build funding partners for the future. The key word the VIKotics use is "confidence".
This will be one piece of the puzzle of building confidence for sustaining the team in future years. VIKotic/SciBorg Dave

Re: 2016 NASA Grant Announcement Day
 

This seems like a strange situation, especially with the limited number (1) of NY teams receiving NASA recognition of any kind (I wonder how many NY teams received the "FIRST" grants?).

Is there a prior example of NASA offering in the original application "up to 10" veteran Regional Challenge grants for a regional and then ultimately deciding to award none? We certainly know there was no dearth of applicants.

Finally, 196 NASA grants were awarded last year. This year, according to the posting, 113. Obviously a big difference. Wonder the reason(s) - more FIRST grants awarded this year? Less available money to distribute? Or are some grants still in limbo?

What an unusual string of events this year. :)

Re: 2016 NASA Grant Announcement Day
 

I agree, I had small hopes that we would get the grant but I figured bc of the grant it would allow some more diverse non NY teams to attend the regional. It sounds horrible to question NASA on this after they just gave 106 teams a great deal of money, but why advertise giving grants for a regional and then given none.

My only guess is they thought the registartion for the regional would be low and the grant would be needed to bring teams in. After registration it was determined it was not needed and this no one recieved the money.

Or the troll whos been lurking the last few weeks in this thread was applying for same grant and NASA figured it should punish everyone 😉

Re: 2016 NASA Grant Announcement Day
 

So do they only do one "Regional Challenge"? In this case, it looks like the Alabama regional is the only one listed... Did they leave Tech Valley off entirely, or is that one still in the works?

Re: 2016 NASA Grant Announcement Day
 

For what it's worth, I sent an email to the NASA grant address asking for clarification on Tech Valley, but they are not really known for going into detail on the particulars of their process. Provided they are indeed awarding zero grants for TV, I did ask them to modify their grant application language to indicate "0 to 10" grants would be awarded for each Regional Challenge location in the future. That would make it crystal clear to applicants that the possibility of a complete shutout for a particular event exists, at NASA'S discretion.

I emailed them also a couple of days ago. No reply yet. I'm not mad at them but I wish I didn't waste my time applying if there was no chance to get it.

Re: 2016 NASA Grant Announcement Day
 

I am suprised that there was such a large cut to the number of teams that got grants compared to the previous year. Makes me appreciate the fact that my team got a grant even more, going to work hard to make NASA proud! Just hoping that no team goes under due to not getting the grant.

Re: 2016 NASA Grant Announcement Day
 

Your statement brings up bait and switch scenarios I don't even want to think about, so I won't.

Hey guess what - we're still attending. While I think it would still be possible to attend our home regional of Buckeye with some RD conversations (same weekend as Tech Valley), with all the delays in grant announcement, we are committed logistically to attending Tech Valley now, grant or no grant.

We weren't applying for the grant on a whim - we were hit with a serious ($15,000 serious) unexpected sponsorship funding cut in September, and a veteran NASA grant would have helped in the short term as we work to recover lost support - that certainly added to the attractiveness of the event. Oh well. It's a cozy event from what I hear and should be fun, even if it's costing us more to go to this regional than Cleveland.

Re: 2016 NASA Grant Announcement Day
 

For the teams who did receive a NASA grant this year, have you received any communication or materials from NASA yet?

I ask because our rookie team this year started as a school based team, and at the end of October, they told us that they could not support FRC at the school. So we changed to be an independent regional team, with the local university (UMASS Lowell) hosting us in their makerspace.

Before the grants were announced, I emailed NASA twice, and also asked FIRST to contact them directly with regard to our team status change, which they did.

When the grants were announced we were recipients. However, they still had the old school name listed.
So I sent email twice again and also asked FIRST to contact them again to ensure that they updated our name, address, and other team info.

I have not had any response back from NASA at all for any of my communications.

I am concerned that if they mail/ship any materials that they will have the school name (which no longer applies) on them and will be sent to the school address, and we will never receive them.

Thanks
Mike

Re: 2016 NASA Grant Announcement Day
 

All this should be fixed in TIMs, you'll need the lead or alternate mentor/contact to correct/update this info. If they are no longer with the team you should have them invite a replacement through TIMs.