The opportunity to have a partnership with an industry leading entity is in itself exciting, but in this case it literally paid off. South Tech's Electronics and Robotics Engineering Major just received a $5000 grant from the Boeing Corporation to pay its entry fee in the nationwide FIRST Robotics Competition. As many as 4000 high school teams will compete in the spring of 2010 along with South Tech, about 100 will receive grants from Boeing. Matt Rola, program instructor, says, "We are part of Boeing's Mentoring Program, which is beneficial in a number of ways including this grant. This is the second year in a row that we have been fortunate to receive the grant."
Mr. Rola and his students will be provided with specifics about the robot design for competition in January. He and the students will conceive a design and build the robot from scratch. The students will then compete in the St. Louis Regionals in mid-March. For more information about the FIRST Robotics Competition visit www.usfirst.org.