2016 NASA Grant Announcement Day

[s_forbes]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

Considering we pay FIRST a giant stack of cash every year, complaining is valid.
(...)
$5k is nothing to fundraise as well (...)

The KOP and first event registration is about $5k. Is that 'a giant stack of cash' or 'nothing to fundraise'? 46% of FIRST teams only attended 1 event last year. $5k can make or break a team.

I agree that teams should work to have more funds than that, but for those that can't manage to do so, waiting to hear on grant money is a really big deal.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by MrBasse

I've been annoyed by this thread for days, but this is the first time I have been offended a bit. Not every community has the support that you might have in California. We have made the payment deadline every year by days at most and by hours at the least. Every year is a challenge and every year is hard work. We make it, but $5k is a season changing amount for us when our budget is typically user $10k. Also, when your state starts to grow FRC at a rate that can shake the most steady hand, sponsors start to run a bit thin.

The kids who work hard for days on the application might also take offense to the "free money" comment too. After all, time is money. The fact that it is a 16 year old students time doesn't change that.

I guess I hope you do feel terrible for teams who rely on funding like this, because there really isn't time for much else now.

I feel for anyone who is in a scenario where this grant could make or break their season.

I don't feel any compassion for someone who has to go on the internet and be a giant tool about FIRST's largest and most committed sponor taking "too long" to decide whether or not to give them free money. That's just absurd. This isn't life or death. Waiting 3-5 days won't kill them.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by alextound

As chief complainer of this thread[...] But for all of the complainers (and myself) I think (at least for me) an updated message would more than suffice to quench our complaints.

Just for your reference: You're the only one complaining publicly. (Or maybe I should put it another way: whining publicly.) Yes, there are others commenting on the lateness. But it's more on the order of, "Guess we have to wait a bit more" instead of "Why don't we have an update yet? Huh? Huh? Huh? Why not? Huh? Huh? Huh? Why don't they update the website? Huh? Huh? Huh? When's the info coming? Huh? Huh? Huh?"

Also the grant money is a HUGE deal for almost any team, except for the elite top 10% who may have enough sponsors in other places.

That's a whole 'nother debate. I don't know of a SINGLE team that would turn down a NASA Grant they were eligible for, applied for, and were awarded. Now, it might not be as big a deal for some teams, true, but for most if not all, $5K in a lump sum isn't bad at all.

The "elite top 10%" part of that statement is, however, making a large assumption about those teams, and other teams. My team isn't elite by any stretch of the imagination, ours included, but we get by just fine without having had a NASA Grant in quite some time (not that we'd EVER pass up the opportunity if we thought we were eligible)--see "constantly coming up with new ways to raise money". I would also guess that some teams you might consider "elite" have a much smaller budget (relative to their expenses) than you might think.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by s_forbes

The KOP and first event registration is about $5k. Is that 'a giant stack of cash' or 'nothing to fundraise'? 46% of FIRST teams only attended 1 event last year. $5k can make or break a team.

I agree that teams should work to have more funds than that, but for those that can't manage to do so, waiting to hear on grant money is a really big deal.

We generally pay $14k, which is a giant stack of cash.

$5k is a decent stack of cash, and is nothing to fundraise for a motivated group with months to do it in.

I fail to see how any of this means it's hypocritical to criticize someone for complaining about free money while also criticizing an organization we pay a good deal to.

[alextound]

Originally Posted by EricH

Just for your reference: You're the only one complaining publicly. (Or maybe I should put it another way: whining publicly.) Yes, there are others commenting on the lateness. But it's more on the order of, "Guess we have to wait a bit more" instead of "Why don't we have an update yet? Huh? Huh? Huh? Why not? Huh? Huh? Huh? Why don't they update the website? Huh? Huh? Huh? When's the info coming? Huh? Huh? Huh?"

Unfortunately for this thread, that was all of the times I had to clarify my position, which I guess I'll do again... I'm not mad that NASA is taking long, or about anything they do, they are an amazing organization, but yet again, I (and I'm sure others) took their update message too literal, along with the accuracy of their procedure for detailing when the grant would be available along with them offering a new time frame if needed. I'm glad there are people here to at least somewhat agree with that, yes, it is not some sort of minute detail that it is not updated, entire teams (1,000s and 1,000s) of people have probably checked this update page, that much publicity is 1. not great for NASA 2. Somewhat frustrating for EVERYone 3. If they have time to read this complaint, I'm sure someone can be like hey, make Alex happy and put "We're going to be giving this out as soon as possible." or "there are issues holding us up right now, sorry for the inconvenience, or since all of you haters gonna hate we're gonna pass on first and try our luck with the other robotics options. . . just to clarify a point I already made, I already switched from wanting the grant money to I just want to know already and make a plan of action with or without it....January is getting pretty close.

[Tom Ore]

Alex, the issue is not so much the content of your posts, but the tone. Come back to this thread in a couple of months and maybe you'll see it.

[alextound]

Originally Posted by Tom Ore

Alex, the issue is not so much the content of your posts, but the tone. Come back to this thread in a couple of months and maybe you'll see it.

Thank you, I think my tone was getting worse as I felt people were completely missing my point, but with you saying it's not the content, I feel better more at ease.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

We generally pay $14k, which is a giant stack of cash.

$5k is a decent stack of cash, and is nothing to fundraise for a motivated group with months to do it in.

I fail to see how any of this means it's hypocritical to criticize someone for complaining about free money while also criticizing an organization we pay a good deal to.

Plus, and it's been a while since I applied for a NASA grant, isn't one of the criteria for sustaining grants to demonstrate that you have plans for not being reliant on the NASA grants?

[cgrace]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Plus, and it's been a while since I applied for a NASA grant, isn't one of the criteria for sustaining grants to demonstrate that you have plans for not being reliant on the NASA grants?

I'm not sure about sustaining grants, but for program growth grants (mainly for rookie and second-year teams) NASA states that "if you are applying for a second year of funding you must also demonstrate at least $5,000 in existing school, community or corporate sponsorship."

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

$5k is a decent stack of cash, and is nothing to fundraise for a motivated group with months to do it in.

Where you're located? Okay, I'll accept your word for it.
In certain other areas, it might not be. There are plenty of teams that don't have the abundance of local businesses and resources in the area. Be careful not to assume your situation applies to all other teams.

[Trying to Help]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Where you're located? Okay, I'll accept your word for it.
In certain other areas, it might not be. There are plenty of teams that don't have the abundance of local businesses and resources in the area. Be careful not to assume your situation applies to all other teams.

Thanks for bringing that up! I've talked with lots of other mentors about raising money and we know how to do it. But we're not in a population dense area. The school district that gives us space to build in has a high school of about 400 students, for two towns. Last year, there was concern that if the school budget amendments were passed and a lower budget was set, they'd have to close the middle school. Not *a* middle school, but *the* middle school. Students attending that school would have to be absorbed into the elementary schools? The high school? Unclear. But it was a concern. That's how worried people are in the community about how much everything is costing them.

We can't charge dues because if we do, we have to pay (per use) for our build space at the middle school. Those are just the rules that they've set down; it has nothing to do with robotics.

I'm just giving these examples of the constraints that we face that other teams might not.

And I'm glad that NASA is willing to put the time into doing this! I'm sure it takes a ton of time to evaluate every application.

[Travis Hoffman]

Based on this post in the FIRST Grant thread, unless the NASA folks are planning on burning the midnight oil tonight, it looks like the NASA announcement will be delayed until early next week, at the earliest. My understanding from another post in that thread is that FIRST waits for NASA announcements before assigning their own rookie grants. Those with more knowledge of the process feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

[SciBorg Dave]

Originally Posted by s_forbes

The KOP and first event registration is about $5k. Is that 'a giant stack of cash' or 'nothing to fundraise'? 46% of FIRST teams only attended 1 event last year. $5k can make or break a team.

I agree that teams should work to have more funds than that, but for those that can't manage to do so, waiting to hear on grant money is a really big deal.

District events are nice because you get 2 districts for the price of 1 regional. This year in PNW districts if you make the cut as one of the top 64 teams in the Northwest you get your 2 districts and PNW championship for one price. Great deal.

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by mdituri

So who is covering the $4000 a team to FIRST for the PNW championship? I am sure that FIRST isn't just forgetting about the $256K in registration fees owed to them for that event. Is PNW getting sponsors to cover the entire amount of registration AND the cost of the entire event?

The PNW group released full details on their model here:

http://www.firstwa.org/Programs/FIRS...RCFunding.aspx

Here's the subsequent discussion that took place on these forums: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=138007

[matthewdenny]

So it is looking like tomorrow is the big day for both grants! Fingers crossed, and good luck to everyone that applied.