My team is going to try for the NASA grant this year, but we’re not sure we’re eligible. We are a third year team, and we lost two of our major sponsors this year, so we’re going to go for the Sustaining grant. However, we are a 4-H team and so we are not run directly out of a school, but the very first line of the grant says this:
FIRST Robotics Competition scholarships are limited to high school students who are involved or planning to get involved in school related robotics clubs or organizations.
Does that mean that we’re not eligible? Are there any other 4-H teams out there (or other teams in a similar situation) who’ve been able to get a NASA grant?
A) This only happens if the federal government shuts down.
B) If the federal government did shut down, October 1 would be too late since the shutdown would be underway and the application would be unavailable. The form is set to go offline “on September, 30th 2013 at 0:00:00 PST”.
We are a 4-H team. I believe we have gotten the Nasa Grant 3 times.
Rookie
Second Year
Sustaining when we lost one major sponsor, which we have sense recouped.
In the State of Indiana, the 4-H programs are run by Purdue University. So when I fill out any grant for our 4-H team, I use Purdue as the grantee if the requirement is that the grant must go to a school. Generally I work with my 4-H Youth Extension Educator and she helps me coordinate with Purdue Grant people. Generally Purdue takes 5-10% or sometimes none, it just varies for running the grant through Purdue.
I haven’t looked at this year’s NASA grant, so I am not sure what question you are referring, looking back on past applications I just answered what schools all my students are from. Because we are a 4-H team, we have students from all over the County.
This is UNLIKE the previous team I was on, where the High School had a rule, that no other students from other schools, INCLUDING homeschoolers were allowed on school property. To me, that SEVERELY limited your local reach in the community.
This question?
If the team will be comprised of students from multiple schools, please list schools here (school names only, please):
Huntington North High School
Black Hawk Christian
Homeschoolers Association
Homestead High School
The other question I see is this one:
Another critical element for the success of a FIRST Robotics Competition program within a school is the enthusiastic support of the school or group’s administration. Do you have support from your senior-level administration, e.g., principal or superintendent? Yes No
If yes, please describe.
We are technically a 4-H team which is tied to Purdue University as an education extension club. We are enthusiastically supported by our local 4-H Youth Education Director and have offered help to other teams in the State of Indiana that have wanted to organize themselves as 4-H teams. We pride ourselves to be the 1st 4-H FIRST Robotics Team chartered in the State of Indiana.
I have my Youth Educator write a letter on 4-H/Purdue letterhead and send it to NASA.
So the first question of the grant asks about school information, including the name of the principal, contact info, etc. 4-H is based in the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign here in Illinois, so should we try to put in the U of I’s information in this section? Or put in the information of one of our local high-schools? Leave it blank? What do you guys think?
In the State of Indiana, Purdue University is the “grantee” for our 4-H Club. So I put the address to our 4-H Extension Office. Which is also our official mailing address.
The principle of our “school”, is our Extension Office Director.
I never put any reference to our High School.
If someone wants to see our application form from years past, send me a PM with your email address, and I will email you our old application forms.
Thanks, Chris, I think that answers my question. I’ll have to talk to our extension office some more about it.
On a different note, I was wondering, what is the percent success rate in applying for a NASA grant? Are there very many teams out there who’ve applied for a grant (and fulfilled all the requirements to the best of their knowledge) and not gotten it? Is it a pretty sure thing that we will get it if we follow all the rules and create a well-written grant?
It’s not a certain thing, but it’s also not like a 5% acceptance rate or anything. Your odds are reasonably good if you put together a good submission (which many teams do not do).
We have put together many submissions (well written ones that we have shared with many other teams that actually then wound up getting NASA grants) these past few years without any success… Good luck to the rest of you out there:)
I have another question about NASA grants. I submitted our application late last night.The application is still up, and this morning I thought of something I would like to add to the last question. Is there any harm in re-submitting, does anyone know?
Same boat*–I didn’t see they’d moved the shutoff up to 2:00 Pacific. We’ll cross our fingers that the folks in Washington get their act together and soon.
So if they cannot process new applications, how does the review panel review already submitted apps? Unless, are they still getting paid to work and just can’t handle new items?
Good luck to the rest of you out there:)