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Part VI: Project Description

Please respond to each of the following questions. Provide enough information for reviewers to adequately understand how you plan to implement your team's participation in FIRST Robotics Competition. The review panel will use your answers to these questions to determine how likely it is that your team will be successful. Please note that formatting will not be preserved during transmission back to NASA. Therefore, please plan on your responses appearing only as plain text. Please be advised all questions should be answered in 10,000 characters or less.

Why are you considering entering a team in the 2012 FIRST Robotics Competition? What will define success for your team?

How many students do you anticipate participating in this program?
How many teachers do you anticipate actively participating in this with your team?
How many corporate/community mentors will participate in this with your team?

Please address the following issues:
A.	Explain the relationship you envision among your students, faculty, and community partners as part of this year's FIRST Robotics Competition experience, i.e., how your team will be organized to facilitate interaction among these groups.
B.	Describe how you envision these groups working together and benefiting from their involvement with FIRST Robotics Competition.

FIRST Robotics Competitions provide high school students with many unique opportunities, but because of the nature of the competition, as well as the travel that can be involved, participation in FIRST Robotics Competition can require significant financial resources. In addition to the entrance fees, teams must budget for robot prototyping and construction, travel to one or more events, and miscellaneous items like team t-shirts. Please outline your anticipated budget (expenses) and how you plan to fund your team's participation (income) this year. Please do not use a table format. Instead, please use paragraph format.

Please identify the corporate or community partners/mentors who will assist and instruct the students in fabrication, mechanical and electrical concepts, computer programming and control, and computer aided design and animation. How will they enable your students to be successful in this project?

Please describe how participation in the FIRST Robotics Competition will provide an inspirational experience for the participating students, how they will be encouraged to consider science-, technology- or engineering-related careers, and how participation will contribute to your school's overall educational goals.

Access to adequate woodworking, metalworking, welding, and other facilities are important in the robot fabrication process. Some teams have these capabilities available at their school, while others take advantage of tools and machine shops provided by their corporate partners. What facilities are available for your team's use in this year's program?

Woodworking

Metalworking

Welding

Software Development

Schools participating in FIRST receive the latest version of Autodesks AutoCAD-based drafting product for computer aided design/ drafting and 3D Studio MAX for 3D simulation and animation.


Do you possess CAD software?	Yes	No
Is CAD software mentorship available?	Yes	No

Please describe the facilities that will be used by your team to design, prototype, and build your robot.

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.

7a.

As explained in the directions your school administration (principal, assistant principal or equivalent) MUST send a letter endorsing the team's desire to apply for funding, confirming the educational sponsor's commitment to the team, and agreeing to the conditions of sponsorship. This must be sent in electronic form as an email or scanned copy of a letter to ARC-FRC-Reqs@mail.nasa.gov, must originate from the official email account of the educational sponsor (Principal, Assistant Principal or equivalent), and must include your FIRST Robotics Competition team number and the name of your school IN THE SUBJECT LINE. If you have questions about this requirement, please contact us at ARC-FRC-Grants@mail.nasa.gov. We must receive the email no later than Thursday, December 1, 2011, 23:59:59 PST. Failure to submit such a letter will result in your application not being considered for funding. By proceeding, you acknowledge that you understand this requirement and that the email from your school administration has already been sent or that it will be sent in time to be received by the deadline. There will be NO EXTENSIONS.

Second-Year teams only. Rookie and Veteran teams skip to question 11.

If you are applying for a second year of funding, you must be willing to mentor a rookie team. If you are not yet mentoring a team, one may be assigned to you. Please describe how you are planning to mentor a rookie team (via telephone or e-mail conversations, personal visits, demonstrations, etc.)? NOTE: If you selected "Rookie" or "Veteran" as your team status (very first question), do not enter data into this field as it will not be saved.

Are you already mentoring or have you made arrangements to mentor a rookie team?	Yes	No

Second-Year teams only. Rookie and Veteran teams skip to question 11.

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. Please list below the school/organization /company name, amount of sponsorship, point of contact at the school/organization/company, and office contact telephone number so that the reviewers may verify this support.
NOTE: If you selected "Rookie" or "Veteran" as your team status (very first question), do not enter data into this field as it will not be saved.

Have you already secured the required school, community or corporate sponsorship?

Yes

10.

Second-Year teams only. Rookie and Veteran teams skip to question 11.

Have you incorporated robotics activities into your classroom or other classes at your school? NOTE: If you selected "Rookie" or "Veteran" as your team status (very first question), do not enter data into this field as it will not be saved.	Yes	No

If yes, please describe.

11.

Please describe what will set your team apart from other teams competing in this year's FIRST Robotics Competition. What makes you unique? If there are any other considerations that you would like to share with the review panel, you may do so here as well.

Questions 12 through 15 are for Sustaining Grant applicants only. NOTE: If you selected "rookie" as your team status (very first question), do not enter data into this field as it will not be saved.

As noted in the instructions, the purpose of the Sustaining Grants is to provide short-term funding to assist those teams at risk of folding due to the loss or significant reduction in support by one or more primary sponsors. These grants are need-based, and will be issued to the teams determined to be most at risk. To evaluate your application for a Sustaining Grant, we need to understand which sponsors have reduced/eliminated their support, how this has affected your ability to continue the team, and how you plan to recover sponsorship from other sources before the next competition season. To assist us in this effort, please provide the following additional information (in questions 12 through 15):

12.

Please identify the source and type/amount of primary sponsorship upon which your team has relied, and which will not be available to you for the 2012 season. Where possible, please include a point of contact / contact information for your previous sponsor.

12a.

Each team applying for a Sustaining Grant must submit a letter from the school administration (principal, assistant principal or equivalent) certifying the reduction/loss of primary sponsorship for the team (including the source and amount of the previous sponsorship). This must be sent in electronic form as an email or scanned copy of a letter to ARC-FRC-Reqs@mail.nasa.gov, must originate from the official email account of the educational sponsor (Principal, Assistant Principal or equivalent), and must include your FIRST Robotics Competition team number and the name of your school IN THE SUBJECT LINE. If you have questions about this requirement, please contact us at ARC-FRC-Grants@mail.nasa.gov. We must receive the email no later than Thursday, December 1, 2011, 23:59:59 PST. Failure to submit such a letter will result in your application not being considered for funding. By proceeding, you acknowledge that you understand this requirement and that the email from your school administration has already been sent or that it will be sent in time to be received by the deadline. There will be NO EXTENSIONS.

13.

Please explain the circumstances surrounding the reduction / loss of your cooperate sponsorship (e.g. why is the organization that previously sponsored your team not able to do so this year?).

14.

In essay Question 3 you provided a description of the team budget for the 2012 season. Please detail your team budget from the 2011 season, and describe the reductions/cuts to the team activities that have resulted from the reduced / lost sponsorship.

15.

Please give a detailed description of how your team plans to recover from the reduction / loss of their corporate sponsorship.

Curator: Drew Price
NASA Official: Lucien Junkin
Last Updated: April 28, 2020
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