NASA has granted award money of $1,386,500 towards the FIRST Student Robotics Competition. These competitions are being held to generate interest in young minds towards science, technology and mathematics concepts.
The students will be performing tasks such as building robots, which would involve the use of these concepts. Students from around 37 states will be participating in the competition.
NASA has actively participated in FIRST robotics initiatives by mentoring thousands of students about the work done by engineers and researchers while working on robotic space missions. The primary intent of FIRST is to inspire students towards taking up careers related to technical fields which will help America conduct future missions for space explorations. Each participating team will be provided with identical kit of parts and will be given a time frame of six weeks for completing their assignment. The weight and the dimensions of the robots are fixed; the students are free to design the appearance and the functionality of the robot. The teams receive support from NASA volunteers through the competition. The robots designed by the teams should exhibit defensive and offensive capabilities. In all there will be 45 national teams and four international teams participating in the competition.
The RAP project at NASA provides the grants for the FIRST competitions. The other participants are Motorola, General Motors, Johnson & Johnson, Ford and Boeing.
Source: http://robotics.nasa.gov/