Awards from the Team Competition Grant program are intended to support the purchase of materials needed for competitions involving multi-student teams. These grants provide up to $1500 to support the design and construction efforts for these competitions.
What We Fund
These grants are for the purchase of materials to be used in the context of a design competition, and cannot be used to support team travel to the competition (travel funding is available through the Student Conference Travel Grant program). Eligible materials include both raw materials for construction (wood, metal, plastic, various connectors), electronic components (microprocessors, circuit boards, etc.), and essential software.
Eligibility
- Teams must include at least three students currently enrolled at Union College, with a faculty member acting as advisor/sponsor. Eligible teams must have finance accounts set up for the team, administered by faculty or a departmental administrative assistant; funding will be provided by journal transfer to these accounts.
- New in Academic Year 2024-2025: Grants for all engineering competition teams associated with the ME, ECBE, and CEE departments are being handled by the Dean of Engineering and ineligible for team competition funding through the Undergraduate Research Office. Please contact the Office of the Dean of Engineering for further information.
Application Requirements
The application must be submitted via the online form linked below. The application should consist of a single PDF document of approximately 5 pages in length, including the following information:
- The names, class years, and majors of all student members of the team.
- The name and department of the faculty advisor, and the departmental administrative assistant who will manage the expenses
- The account number and name of the finance account to which funds will be transferred.
- A concise description of the competition requirements (or the previous year’s, if the current year’s requirements have not been released).
- An overview of the intended design (or the previous year’s design, if the current year’s requirements have not been released), showing the scale of the project and the components involved. This should include schematic drawings where available.
- A budget, formatted as a table, for the project as a whole, including a listing of additional sources of funding. We anticipate that these projects will exceed the $1500 limit for a single Team Competition Grant, and will thus require additional support from, for example, other grant programs, academic departments, external sponsorships, etc. The proposal should include an outline of how that support will be obtained.
- A materials budget, formatted as a table, totaling at least $1,500, described at the subsystem level. That is, this does not need to detail part numbers and prices of each individual component, but can group related items together (for example, a proposal for a plane might “$250 for wing construction, $137 for tail components, $375 for radio control system,” etc.).
Apply for a Team Competition Grant
Funding Requirements
Funding will be provided via journal transfer to a dedicated team account; teams should work with the designated faculty advisor and Administrative Assistant to make necessary purchases.
Receipts totaling at least the amount of the grant must be provided to Ruth Cotter by a date to be designated at the time of the award (typically in late May). These funds may be used to reimburse purchases made before the award date, should that be necessary given the timing of the competition.