STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO TEAM REGISTRATION AND GRANTS
2017-2018 SEASON
Follow the instructions in this doc to learn how to:
1. Register your new team at www.firstinspires.org
2. Apply for the MDE Grant in MEGS+ (closes Nov 6 at 11:59pm)
3. Apply for the additional “FRC Rookie Grant” through FIRST
(info at bottom of this document (closes Nov 2 at 11:59pm)
REGISTER YOUR TEAM WITH FIRST TO GET A TEAM NUMBER
Returning Teams:
If you have been a team before, you use your old team number to apply for the MDE grants. Your number stays with you always. Note that FRC and FTC teams must be registered for an event by the time the grant closes. .
New Teams:
BE SURE TO INCLUDE YOUR CELL PHONE WHEN REGISTERING YOUR TEAM. WE MUST BE ABLE TO REACH YOU AFTER SCHOOL HOURS.
To apply for any grant, whether the one in MEGS+ or any other place, you must be a registered team with a real team number. When you begin the registration process you get a temporary team number which can be used to submit grants. You can tell it’s temporary because it starts with the year. Once you are placed into your first event, you will be assigned a permanent number that stays with your team forever. You must have a permanent number by the time the grant closes.
Get your temporary number by registering your team here::
Register your team here:: www.firstinspires.org
.
You can find an FRC season calendar here: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/calendar/
GENERAL INFO ON STATE MDE GRANT IN MEGS+
(FRC Rookies: see also FRC Rookie Grant at bottom of this document)
ELIGIBILITY:
Any publicly funded or registered private school district may apply for the grant. This includes public schools, charters, public academies and ISD's (with some stipulations on ISD offerings). Private and parochial school teams, are eligible as well though their pot of money is smaller ($300,000 vs. $2,500,000).
ANTICIPATED AMOUNT OF THE MDE GRANT:
High School FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) (Grades 9-12) :
$1,500 Coach Stipend (need not be a teacher)
$7,500 Team Support for Rookies (covers kit & registration of $6,000 plus 2 events, and $1,500 extra)
$??? later if you make it to States (automatically awarded if there is still money available)
$??? later if you make it to Worlds (automatically awarded if there is still money available)
$9,000+ total value of the MDE state grant package!
Middle School FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) (Grades 6-8):
$1,000 Coach Stipend (need not be a teacher)
$ 300 Team Support
Elementary School FIRST LEGO League (FLL) ( Grades 4-5):
$750 Coach Stipend (need not be a teacher)
$200 Team Support
Elementary School FIRST LEGO League Jr (FLL Jr) Grades K=3):
$300 Coach Stipend (need not be a teacher)
$100 Team Support
HOW TO APPLY: (This is the overview, details for each item are below)
Step 1: Register your team with FIRST to get a team number to use on the grant.
Step 2: Find the person in your district who has access to MEGS+, which is the online system for MDE grant applications. This person is called the LEVEL 5 employee usually found in the administration office for the district. For charters, you may have to go to the managing company.
Step 3: Fill out the app and remember to attach an in-kind spending plan for the required in-kind match
Use the spending plan template here: www.techplan.org/rdi You input school district name/number at top, add NUMBER of district wide FIRST teams at each level and it spits out the spending plan on the next tab.
SAMPLE SPENDING PLAN TEMPLATE found here: www.techplan.org/rdi,. Simply put in the NUMBER of teams at each level in your district and the plan is automatically generated in the next tab.
(see in-kind match requirements below)
STEP 1. REGISTER YOUR TEAM WITH FIRST TO GET A TEAM NUMBER
Returning Teams:
If you have been a team before, you use your old team number to apply for the MDE grants. Your number stays with you always. Note that FRC and FTC teams must be registered for an event by the time the grant closes.
New Teams:
BE SURE TO INCLUDE YOUR CELL PHONE WHEN REGISTERING YOUR TEAM. WE MUST BE ABLE TO REACH YOU AFTER SCHOOL HOURS.
To apply for any grant, whether the one in MEGS+ or any other place, you must be a registered team with a real team number. When you begin the registration process you get a temporary team number which can be used to submit grants. You can tell it’s temporary because it starts with the year. Once you are placed into your first event, you will be assigned a permanent number that stays with your team forever. You must have a permanent number by the time the grant closes.
Get your temporary number by registering your team here::
Register your team here:: www.firstinspires.org
.
You can find an FRC season calendar here: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/calendar/
2. FIND THE LEVEL 5 EMPLOYEE IN YOUR DISTRICT.
The Level 5 employee is the only person within a district that has access to the online Michigan Education Grant System known as MEGS+ . There is only one level 6 employee per district, usually found in the superintendent's office. If you cannot figure out who your level 5 employee is, you can contact Amanda Stoel at the MI Dept of Ed and she can look it up on the MDE’s list.
Amanda Stoel
StoelA@michigan.gov
517-241-3629
If you are a charter school, the level 5 employee may be in your management company's office rather than at your school. . Ask the head of your school.
3. LINK TO MEGS+ LOGIN IN PAGE
Look for the FIRST Robotics Grant.for the 2015-16 year.
4. READ THE GRANT PARAMETERS
Before starting, be sure to read up on the grant specifics which can be found in the various documents contained here:
5. FILL OUT A SINGLE APPLICATION FOR ALL OF THE TEAMS IN THE DISTRICT.
The level 5 employee will fill out ONE single application for all of the FTC and FRC teams within the district, putting each team on a separate page.. Each team must be on a separate page within the application. The application allows the district to add a separate page for each team.
Example: If a given district has 3 high school FRC teams and 5 middle school FTC teams, the application will contain 8 separate team pages within the the single district-wide application..
6. FILL IN YOUR TEAM NUMBER. IF YOU HAVE ONLY A TEMPORARY TEAM NUMBER READ HERE:
(FRC 8 digit numbers starting with 2016, FTC 8 digit numbers starting with 2015)
The app requires a team number for each separate team in your district seeking a grant. If you are a new team, and have filled out the team information in TIMS but have not yet signed up for any events, you will not yet have a permanent 4 digit team number. You will however already have a temporary team number starting with the numbers 2016. You can find this number by logging into TIMS. Please use the letter "R" for rookie followed by the last 4 digits in your temporary number. This will let the state know this is just your temporary number.
Example: You are a new team with a temporary number of 20150663. On the application under team number you will enter "R0663".
7. ONE SPONSOR IS REQUIRED
If you already have a sponsor in tow (Whirlpool or Dow or others), put them in the grant. If you don’t have a sponsor yet, and many of our rookie teams don’t, you will be applying applying for the FRC Rookie grant from Argosy (see bottom of this document) . Use Argosy as your community sponsor:
Argosy
FRCRookie@usfirst.org
800-871-8326
GM sponsored FRC teams
Tim Grewe
GMFIRST@gm.com
248-905-1010
Dow
Mike Rehberg
989-636-1015
Rookie and Veteran FTC teams can use Consumers Energy:
Carolyn Bloodworth
foundation@consumersenergy.com
517-788-0432
Sponsorships do not need to be cash, they can be "in kind." If you have a mentor on your team (parent or otherwise) who works at a company, you can use the company name. Mentoring is a form of an “in kind” donation from a company.
8. ATTACH AN IN-KIND SPENDING PLAN TO THE APPLICATION FOR THE REQUIRED MATCH
(use the template found here www.techplan.org/rdi) to generate a plan automatically that will include ALL
the FIRST high school and middle school teams in the district)
The grant this season requires a match of 25% of the stipend, and 50% of the team support funds. The match can be financial or "IN KIND" from your own school, or from a company, individuals, other grants (not the State Grant) or whatever. Examples of “in kind donations” can be a room to build at the school, school supplies, paying the teacher benefit portion of the stipend, a donation of materials from a sponsor, donations of food from restaurant or anything else you can imagine that helps your team.
The district should use the sample spending plan template worksheet found at www.techplan.org/rdi) to generate the aggregate match required for all of their teams at the high school and middle school level. You just supply the district name and district ID number at the top. Then fill in THE NUMBER OF TEAMS in the district at each level. Voila! On the the next tab is your completed spending plan for the district.
For example, a district has one rookie FRC team, and three FTC teams.
Simply place the number of teams in the boxes for each level and the plan will generate automatically on the next tab of the spreadsheet.
9. MODIFYING YOUR GRANT INFO
Prior to hitting the final submit button, you can go in and modify your district's grant application to add new teams or modify information. But, remember you MUST submit before the application period ends on Nov 3, 2015..
If you need to modify your app after hitting submit, call Amanda Stoel at 517-241-3639 and ask her to help you reopen it.
If you have any grant application questions feel free to contact Gail Alpert at gail.alpert@gmail.com or the Dept of Ed: Ann-Marie Smith, smitha24@michigan.gov, 517-335-2775.
10. PAYING FOR THE FRC SEASON
Like most MDE grants, payment comes in monthly installments through your state aid payments. It’s likely they won’t begin until January. Money is due to FIRST in November, so the MDE grant is a REIMBURSEMENT grant. What this means is that you must pay FIRST first and then this grant will reimburse you monthly through your state aid payment. You will see the extra funds on line 99h of the state aid sheet.. Initial registration fees for high school FRC are due to FIRST on Nov 24, 2014. FIRST will not ship your FRC kit until they have received payment or a PO from your team.
11. STATE GRANT WEBINAR TO LEARN MORE, TUES. SEPTEMBER 16 9:30 AM (Already passed)
There is a webinar on the State Grant hosted by the Michigan Dept of Education:
When: Tues Sept 16, 9:30 AM
Call in Number: 888-808-6929 Access Code: 8105360
Webinar URL: http://remc.adobeconnect.com/first-ta/
12. CHECK OUT OUR COMPREHENSIVE GRANT SHEET FOR A LIST OF OTHER GRANTS AVAILABLE THIS SEASON!
See www.firstinmichigan.org. Go to the right side of the opening page.
13. CONTACT INFO
If you plan to apply for a high school FRC grant and need help, contact
Gail Alpert
President, FIRST in Michigan
248-425-4148
If you plan to apply for a middle school FTC grant and need help, contact
Tammy Damrath
Director, FTC
michiganftc@gmail.com
MDE Contacts:
Ann-Marie Smith
517-335-2775
smitha24@michigan.gov
Amanda Stoel
517-241-3629
ROOKIE FRC TEAMS:
PLEASE APPLY NOW FOR ADDITIONAL “FRC ROOKIE GRANT” FROM THE ARGOSY FOUNDATION (Rookie high school FRC teams only)
ADDITIONAL GRANT FOR HIGH SCHOOL ROOKIE FRC TEAMS:
There is also an additional, totally separate, 2 year private grant that can be used to augment the state grant. It is due Nov 2, 2017. You can find it here:
https://usfirst.submittable.com/submit/35125
It is a typical grant with lots of narratives and a fundraising plan.
Every Rookie, whether from a private school, or public school is eligible and should apply. It is long but the payout makes it worth it:
$4,000 this year
$2,000 next year
Public School teams:
Your angle should be that you need this grant as your match to unlock the state funds.
Non-Public School teams: (home schools, private etc)
Your angle should be that since you are not a public school team you don't have access to State of Michigan funding.
Regional Director for Michigan:
Gail Alpert
248 425-4148
gail.alpert@gmail.com
Fundraising Plan Required:
The goal of creating the fundraising plan is to look at the community around you to plan how you will fund the team on your own in the future. Discuss access to businesses, companies your parents work for, organizations, grants, your community foundation, etc.
It's actually a great exercise, though long and arduous to prepare. I prepared a pro forma presentation that you can just fill in. You can find it here: Proforma Fundraising Plan
There are three components you absolutely MUST include per the terms of the grant:
CLICK HERE FOR Additional FTC Grants and Application Procedures