The Chrysler Foundation Awards $133,000 To FIRST
AUBURN HILLS -- The Chrysler Foundation Thursday named 22 FIRST Robotics and FIRST Lego League teams as recipients as $133,000 in grants.
The teams hail from Michigan, Indiana, Arizona and Virginia.
In this most recent round of funding, each FIRST team will receive a grant of $6,625; FLL teams will receive grants of $500. The funds will be used to offset costs associated with items such as registration fees, parts and materials and team apparel.
The Chrysler Foundation will award additional funding to teams that qualify for and attend the FIRST Robotics Competition Championship or FIRST Lego League World Festival.
"The Chrysler Foundation and Chrysler Group are proud to play a role in encouraging students to explore the worlds of science, technology, engineering and mathematics," said Jody Trapasso, president of the Chrysler Foundation.
A supporter of FIRST since its earliest years, The Chrysler Foundation has provided more than $1.7 million in support of the FIRST robotics program and teams during the past 16 years.
Beyond funding, employees within Chrysler Group's Product Development organization have played an integral part in the success of the FIRST program – volunteering their time and talents to mentor students and serve as competition coordinators. Working side-by-side with adult mentors, students learn basic physics, electrical and mechanical engineering and machining skills.
Michigan teams receiving grants included the following FIRST teams: the Fighting Pi of the Macomb Academy of Arts and Sciences, Armada; the Killer Bees of Notre Dame Preparatory School, Auburn Hills; the Maple Machine of Birmingham Seaholm and Groves high schools, Birmingham; the Bionic Barons of Bloomfield Hills Andover High School; the Capac Chiefs of the Capac Community Schools, Capac; Technical Difficulties of Chelsea High School, Chelsea; Team Rush of the OSM Tech Academy at Clarkston High School, Clarkston; Dundee High School, Dundee; Martians and More Martians from Goodrich High School, Goodrich; the EngiNerds of Grand Blanc High School, Grand Blanc; the Dragons of Lake Orion High School, Lake Orion; the Foley Freeze of Bishop Foley Catholic High School, Madison Heights; the Juggernauts of Oakland Tech Northeast, Pontiac; Chief Delphi of Pontiac High School, Pontiac; the Adambots of Rochester Adams and Stoney Creek High Schools, Rochester; the Monsters of the Walled Lake Schools; and the Steel Armadillos of the Warren Consolidated Schools. Also funded was the Bubble Poppers FIRST Lego League team of Bolan Park Middle School, Troy.
Approximately 25 high school students make up each FIRST team, which has six weeks to design and build a robot to perform a prescribed series of tasks. FLL teams are comprised of 10 children, grades 4-8 (age 9-14 in the United States and Canada) with one adult coach. Teams participate in a challenge by programming an autonomous robot to score points on a themed playing field, developing a solution to a problem they have identified, all guided by the FLL Core Values. Past Challenges have been based on topics such as biomedical engineering, nanotechnology, climate, quality of life for the handicapped population and transportation.
