NASA Grant App posted

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Billfred

It appears that the grant covers one event registration regardless of competition chosen.

That said, let me make sure I'm reading this correctly:



Let me make sure I've got this straight:

-NASA is soliciting grants for all robotics competitions.
-NASA has not selected an organization to stage the competitions that they will support, but will select one organization.
-If your competition's organization is selected and your grant is approved, you get the money.
-If your competition's organization is not selected, then your grant is not approved...but NASA may still be able to support you depending on their procurement rules.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing--as a taxpayer, I'm glad NASA is examining the best use of its resources--but I'm also trying to make sense of the new language included in this year's announcement.

I am asking someone in the know like Dave Lavery to post in this thread and verify Billfred's assessment.

It seems clear that there will be no Regional Challenge grants this year, which makes sense, since FRC has not been named as a ROC winner, and they can't specify grants specific to any one robotics competition. A natural question would be then - does NASA expect to fund additional Program Growth and Sustaining Grants to make up for the removal of the Regional Challenge grant funding?

What is most perplexing to me is that the language of Mark Leon's message constantly refers to a singular ROC "winner" that is yet to be determined; however, it is mentioned how in past years, teams from a variety of robotics competitions such as FIRST, BotBall, BEST, VRC, NURC, etc. have received NASA grant support. Is that changing? I'm sure teams who participate in these robotics competitions would appreciate some *official* enlightment regarding the decision status and nature of this new "ROC-CAN" selection process and what it potentially means for them. Getting a general idea of when the official ROC selection will be finalized would also be a plus, if such information is available.