South Bend Schools receive $113K grant for robotics programs

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The South Bend Community School Corporation has secured a $113,000 Robotics Grant aimed at enriching robotics programs for students across from elementary to high school.

The grant is part of the Indiana Department of Education's efforts to increase access to technology, manufacturing, and other educational programs through robotics.

Officials say funding will go towards the following key areas:

• Competition robots and registration fees for elementary schools
• Transition support from VEX IQ to VEX V5 in middle schools
• Funding for high school teams participating in FRC and VEX V5

Kathryn Meier, a science teacher at Riley High School and Sponsor/ Coach of the robotics Team 3865, stated. "So, our robotics team, our high school team, is part of FRC, or First Robotics Competition, where we build very large-scale robots for competition every year. It's a very expensive program, kind of by necessity, and so much of the grant money from this particular grant is helping us to pay for our registration and our competition, and then other funding from partners like the South Bend Alumni Association will help us to buy parts, pay for transportation. We'll take our students to two events, and they are full weekend events, one of them we have to travel for. So, we've got lodging expenses and food and all sorts of things."