FIRST Washington has a number of competitive grant opportunities for teams and we encourage your team to apply! All of these grants are made possible by generous donors, with emphasis going toward assisting disadvantaged teams in need. With FIRST Washington’s commitment to bringing FIRST programs to more communities and schools, it is our goal to help teams to be self-sustaining within three years. If you need help in building out your team sustainability plan and fundraising training, please let us know. We want to see you be successful in not only programming and building a robot, but building strong business and team collaboration skills! The deadline for both of these grants is this Thursday, less than ½ of the teams have applied for the FIRST Washington grant. Apply today!!!!
1. FIRST Washington grant: Open Now. Deadlines are: The grant deadline for FIRST Tech Challenge Teams is Sept 19. To apply: https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/8e944e032ad74f98864853f98fa03a44. As of today, only 36 teams have applied for this grant. Remember, this is how we are able to give the funds we receive to you if you do not apply for this grant, you may be responsible for all of your local team fees.
2. OSPI, iGrants: Open Now. Deadlines September 19 for FIRST Tech Challenge Teams. This generous grant is a building grant for Washington teams only who must compete in FIRST Washington competitions during the 2019-2020 school year. Teams must be public school-based or sponsored by the school. To complete the grant, please work with your school finance office or CTE to complete this grant and they must log in under the school, not the district for these are building level grants. FIRST LEGO League: form 605, FIRST Tech Challenge: form 606, FIRST Robotics Competition: form 424. As of right now very few teams have applied for this grant. In order for us to continue to receive the level of funding we receive from the state, teams need to apply for this grant. AND there is money to be given out so it will benefit your team to apply. Don’t delay, apply today!
2. Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
FIRST Washington’s DEI Workshops this fall! With FIRST Washington’s commitment to equity and access, we are pleased to partner with three of our FIRST Robotics Competition teams to host half day workshops for all coaches, mentors and volunteers. We have a professional DEI facilitator, Tareena Joubert joining us for these days.
The goal of these workshops is to support our communities, coaches and mentors in welcoming all students. Part of the success in recruiting students is broadening our base of coaches/mentors and volunteers who look like students. Helping FIRST broaden our base of adults to include more women, persons of color, diverse professional backgrounds will help us position FIRST programs as inclusive and welcoming to all. Please join one of these workshop by signing up today to learn some tips and tools on how you can assist!
1. Saturday, September 28th: 9 a.m. – 1 p.m., Lewis and Clark High School, Spokane. Thank you Titanium Tigers, FRC team 2944 for hosting! RSVP: here.
2. Saturday, October 5th: 10 a.m. -2 p.m. Seahome High School, Bellingham. Thank you Seamonsters, FRC team 2605 for hosting! RSVP here.
3. Saturday, November 16th, 9 a.m. – 1 p.m., Environmental Learning Center, Point Defiance. Thank you SotBots, FRC team 2557 for hosting! RSVP here.
3. FTC Robotics Intro PD
This professional development workshop for teachers/mentors assumes no prior experience with FTC robot construction or programming. The course starts with an introduction to FTC robot construction hardware (Tetrix) and basic robot construction. The course then walks attendees through the underlying Java language curriculum, exploring the Java language itself, the development tools used and a full set of example robot control programs. Attendees will use the example programs to operate actual robots during the course.
FIRST Washington Fieldhouse
21238 – 68th Ave S
Kent, WA 98032
Sept 27: 4-7
Sept 28: 9-4:30
The course fee is $149 and includes 10 STEM clock hours, free curriculum resources and instruction from a FTC veteran and course author.
Topics include:
> Tetrix Hardware Kit
> Basic Tetrix Robot Construction
> Text Based Programming
> Language Constructs
> Tetrix Robot Control System
> Control Tetrix Robot with Java Programs via Lab Exercises
If you have any questions, please contact the instructor Rich Corn (rac@racc.com)
