This is a grant that I doubt any FIRST team can win in isolation…but it may be a good opportunity to partner up and do something.
Strictly Briks is offering up to 5 $2,000 product grants to museums adding makerspace programs. They do LEGO- and DUPLO-compatible parts and seem focused on free-building collections, which is kind of perfect for museums and events with a lot of kids coming and going often.
My business received a stack of their Big Briks baseplates for preschool classes, and I just unwrapped them to test against some DUPLO bricks. The connection to a used DUPLO brick isn’t quite as strong as the connection between two genuine DUPLO bricks, but it’s still very solid. And $2,000 goes a long way with them, it seems, so even some bricks went bad it’s probably not the end of the world.
The criteria are here and the application is here; the deadline to apply is July 31, so you’d want to get cranking on this pretty soon.
Why do you think no singular team could win this on their own? It is only $2,000, not something huge. Not to say that is not a lot of money, but for some grantmakers it is not.
I am still open to the idea of collaborative team funding.
Museums that provide unique programming and/or community outreach initiatives directed toward children’s education and creative development.
(snip)
I can not positively say that the number of teams that meet that threshold is zero, but I assume it is very, very small and that most teams would need to partner with an eligible museum to make it happen.
Edit to add: I also recognize that many FIRST teams’ activities meet all but the “museum” part of that, but the way the application form is written it is pretty clear they are trying to reach genuine museums.