MDE State Grant Now Open

The MDE FIRST Robotics State Grant is open Sept. 8th through noon on Nov 3, 2015. All high school and middle school public schools, academies charters with FRC or FTC teams are eligible. ISDs with full time students also qualify. Link to grant information: http://www.techplan.org/rdi/.

The grant application is online on the MEGS+ website. There is one person in your district with access to MEGS+. This person is called the level 5 employee and is usually in the superintendent's office. One single application is filed for all of the teams (FTC and FRC) in a given district. Each team gets a separate page within the application. Please review the Request for Proposal (RFP) linked here: http://www.techplan.org/downloads/pdfs/2015-16_first_robotics_rfp_20150825_114726_1.pdf

The state is hosting two technical assistance webinars: September 9, 2015, at 8:30 a.m or September 15, 2015, at 2:30 p.m. Coaches, your district’s Level 5 employee and/or the financial person in your district can join the webinar online at: http://remc.adobeconnect.com/first-ta/ and/or dial-in to the audio portion here: 1-888-808-6929, access code 8105360. These webinars will be recorded and linked to the TechPlan page.

For FTC, the grants are as follows:

• $300 Team Grant; for team registration, supplies and other expenses (50% match but can be in-kind)
• $1,500 for Coach Stipend; capped at 100; one per school (match is $25%)

In addition, any FTC or FRC team advancing to the next level of play will receive money automatically, as long as the grant funds hold out: $100 for States; $500 for Super Regional; $1,000 for Worlds.

The match requirement can be met with in-kind donations such as meeting space at the school, access to a school bus for travel, etc. The person submitting the app must press “yes” that you agree to the match and also attach one comprehensive spending plan for all the teams in the district. This year we created a form that will calculate and spit out a "sample" budget for your whole district. It is linked to the TechPlan grant page. Simply fill in the number of teams at each level and a sample spending plan for the whole district gets populated for you automatically.

Payout of grant funds is done with the school's monthly state aid payment. A payout schedule will be posted on the TechPlan grant page. If you have any questions, please email: Amanda Stoel, Department Analyst, Educational Technology Unit, Office of Education Improvement and Innovation: stoela@michigan.gov.