New Michigan Grants for FRC

[Mike Martus]

Has anyone heard about the New FRC grants for MI to start teams and pay coaches a $1500 stipend??

[Clinton Bolinger]

Yes.

Grant Announcement: http://www.michigan.gov/documents/md...s_431002_7.pdf

Grant Details: http://www.techplan.org/downloads/pd...4_105933_3.pdf

-Clinton-

[AdamHeard]

$3,000,000 is a nice amount of money. Awesome!

[Lil' Lavery]

An interesting bullet point:

5. If a FIRST Robotics team qualifies for state, national, or world competitions, the team will participate in the competition.

[JB987]

Wow! Guess I never should have left Michigan 35 years ago...except I never would have been able help start The High Rollers Seriously though, kudos to those who helped convince their legislature of the benefits of supporting the FIRST mission. Hopefully the rest of us can use this as precedent for our state's movers and shakers in our efforts to "do the right thing".

[AllenGregoryIV]

That's amazing, will more FiM teams go out of state this year since they don't have to pay their initial registration fee?

[waialua359]

That is awesome news and glad to see you folks pave the way for hopefully the rest of us!

Our state is currently in legislation about paying stipends to Middle School Academic program coaches.
That would qualify a lot of VEX programs in our State, including our school where we are a High/Intermediate.

[AGPapa]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

That's amazing, will more FiM teams go out of state this year since they don't have to pay their initial registration fee?

Not only will they not have to pay their initial registration fee, it seems like they won't have to pay any registration fee.

4. State, National, and World Competition Grants
The MDE will provide funding for reasonable expenses for qualifying teams to participate in State, National, or World FIRST Robotics Competitions.

[JB987]

Originally Posted by waialua359

That is awesome news and glad to see you folks pave the way for hopefully the rest of us!

Our state is currently in legislation about paying stipends to Middle School Academic program coaches.
That would qualify a lot of VEX programs in our State, including our school where we are a High/Intermediate.

Great news for southern Nevada teams regarding stipends, Glenn. We finally got our District (5th largest in the country) to offer $746 per semester to high school robotics advisers and $486 for middle school advisers per semester. We fought this battle for many years. Just goes to show you that persistence in life can pay off! Now if we can just get our legislators to follow the Michigan model...

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by JB987

Great news for southern Nevada teams regarding stipends, Glenn. We finally got our District (5th largest in the country) to offer $746 per semester to high school robotics advisers and $486 for middle school advisers per semester. We fought this battle for many years. Just goes to show you that persistence in life can pay off! Now if we can just get our legislators to follow the Michigan model...

That's awesome too!
Its about time academic advisors/coaches got paid something for all that they do!

[Racer26]

WOW!

Looking at the details:

New teams can get $7,500.
Existing teams can get $5,000.

ALL teams that qualify for state, national, or world championships can get an entry fee.

For the District grants, the team must show 50% of the grant value in local sponsorship from 3rd parties (if I'm understanding this right)

There were 203 MI teams in 2013. 64 Qualified for MICMP, and 35 MI teams competed at CMP.

35 x $5000 (CMP Registration) = $175,000
64 x $4000 (MICMP Registration) = $256,000
203 x $5000 (District Registration) = $1,015,000

Total cost per season if it were to pay for EVERY veteran MI Team's District/MICMP/CMP registrations? $1,446,000.

This grant is supposed to last 3 years. It won't be paying for everyone's initial $5,000 registration, but it very well might pay for state and world championship entry fees for most of the MI teams each year.

Sweet deal. Way to go MI.

[Clinton Bolinger]

Just a reminder that the Grant Applications are available today via the MEGS+.

https://megs.mde.state.mi.us/megs/login.asp

There should be at least one person in every school district in Michigan that should have access.

Enjoy!

-Clinton-

[Clinton Bolinger]

Additional information about the Michigan Grant

House Bill No. 4228
Sponsored by: Bill Rogers

See page 50 - Sec. 99h: https://www.legislature.mi.gov/docum...13-PA-0060.pdf

Originally Posted by House Bill No. 4228 - page 50

Sec. 99h.

(1) From the appropriation in section 11, there is allocated an amount not to exceed $3,000,000.00 for 2013-2014 for competitive grants to districts that provide pupils in grades 7 to 12 with expanded opportunities to improve mathematics, science, and technology skills by participating in events hosted by a science and technology development program known as FIRST (for inspiration and recognition of science and technology) robotics.

(2) A district applying for a FIRST tech challenge or FIRST robotics competition program grant shall submit an application in a form and manner determined by the department. To be eligible for a grant, a district shall demonstrate in its application that the district has established a partnership for the purposes of the FIRST program with at least 1 sponsor, business entity, higher education institution, or technical school.

(3) The department shall distribute the grant funding under this section for the following purposes:
(a) Except as otherwise provided in subparagraph (iii), not more than $1,000,000.00 for grants to districts to pay for stipends of $1,500.00 for 1 coach per team, distributed as follows:
(i) Not more than 500 stipends for coaches of high school teams, including existing teams.
(ii) Not more than 100 stipends for coaches of middle school or junior high teams, including existing teams.
(iii) If the requests for stipends exceed the numbers of stipends allowed under subparagraphs (i) and (ii), and if there is funding remaining unspent under subdivisions (b) and (c), the department shall use that remaining unspent funding for grants to districts to pay for additional stipends in a manner that expands the geographical distribution of teams.

(b) Not more than $1,000,000.00 for grants to districts for event registrations, materials, travel costs, and other expenses associated with the preparation for and attendance at FIRST tech challenge and FIRST robotics competitions. Each grant recipient shall provide a local match from other private or local funds for the funds received under this subdivision equal to at least 50% of the costs of participating in an event. The department shall set maximum grant amounts under this subdivision in a manner that maximizes the number of teams that will be able to receive funding.

(c) Not more than $1,000,000.00 for grants to districts for awards to teams that advance to the state and world championship competitions. The department shall determine an equal amount per team for those teams that advance to the state championship and a second equal award amount to those teams that advance to the world championship.

Additional Information about the bill can be found here: https://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(1c...-4228&query=on

-Clinton-

[marccenter]

Dear Michigan Grant Teams,

I hope you have started the process of trying to get your MDE grant through your school system. In my case I have run into numerous issues and the grant process has not been a "slam dunk."

Please don't wait until the last minute and miss this great opportunity. You may need to "bird dog" the grant until is submitted by your local school officials.

Looking forward to the 2014 FRC season,

Marc

[MrBasse]

I sat down with our district finance director the other day and had everything submitted in about 15 minutes. I would suggest that you get a face to face meeting with the person responsible for the submission, as there are some things that they might not know on the application. Nothing major, but just information about sponsors and contact numbers and addresses. Our district was excited about it because they are going to be supporting us beyond workspace for the first time.