[EricH]

That's $833 per high school. FTC money, maybe. NOT FRC, by itself.

Now, that's also $5000 per legislative district. But, not all legislative districts will have the same number of schools.

So, here's the way I would do it. Each high school would need to specify how much they want for youth robotics. FRC, FTC, VEX, BEST, etc. Any program that fits the bill, with FIRST programs preferred. Give an approximate amount. That's your target.

Then, matching funds. The school raises/donates half the money from its district, and the state matches it up to a total of the target for that school. Any money left in the fund then is up for grabs--bonuses for award winners, funding for the program as a whole, or evenly divided.

Here's the trick. Even with matching funds, you only get $1666 to play with per school. But what if schools combined? Schools ABC, DEF, and GHI combine and field one team (or set of teams) between them. They now have 3x the money for one program. So this would encourage schools joining forces to maximize the impact. As they raise funds locally, they can build up a support base and begin becoming independent if they so desire. Something like NiagraFIRST and the Triplets did. Maybe not to that extent, but the same idea applies.