Glenn-
Congratulations! That is awesome!
Since you mentioned that the grant came from state funds, it is quite likely that they are current-year funds. Typically, these funds must be spent before the end of the next fiscal year, so you have about a 15 months before they expire. But this is definitely one of the first things you want to check out.
Either way, that is a significant chunk of money, and spending it wisely may actually be a problem - particularly if you have to do it within a single fiscal year. You could certainly buy a whole truckload of these:
(You have to wonder just how many sets of gold-plated tools does someone really need?
)
But seriously, this could be a great opportunity for your to become your own funding agency. You could issue sub-grants to other Hawai'i teams, and use the funds to improve the competition robot fabrication facilities across the entire state. Just imagine the aggregate improvement that could be realized by 15 teams with $50,000 each to improve their facilities. This could all be accomplished under an umbrella project run by The Hawai'ian Kids, and you could use the opportunity to do things like:
- design a "standard robot shop" utilized by all the Hawai'ian teams (which would help promote familiarity and cooperation between teams, since all the teams would be using a similar set-up)
- add a significant "business experience" to the team, by letting them define, create, and implement a process to select and fund the sub-grants (which would be excellent material for the Entrepreneurship Award)
I am sure that you guys have lots of great ideas on how to put the funds to good use. Keep us posted on how the whole experience progresses, and what you end up doing. And again, congratulations on a job well done to get the state funding!
-dave
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