NFPA’s Robotics Challenge Scholarship Drives Students to Use Fluid Power

The NFPA Robotics Challenge is a scholarship program that supports of the missions of FIRST^® Robotics and the National Robotics League (NRL). NFPA offers one merit-based scholarship for $40,000 ($10,000 per year for four years) to a high school senior who participates as part of a 2019 FIRST^® Robotics or NRL Competition Team. This scholarship may be used to study engineering at any accredited technical college or university in the United States.

The goal of this scholarship is to bring awareness of fluid power options in robotics to high school students and to stimulate increased use of fluid power products in these competitions. By getting more students working with fluid power at a young age and seeing all of its benefits, more students considering fluid power careers when they enter a tech school or university.

In its third year, the NFPA Robotics Challenge Scholarship gains more notability every year. In our first year, we received 85 applications, and last year we received 105 applications. Every year the number of teams using fluid power increases!

The FIRST^® Robotics Competition kicked off their competition season on January 5 when they released the game/challenge information for this year. The theme, Destination: Deep Space, offers many opportunities for fluid power to be used in a winning robot!

How can you help? If you mentor a FIRST^® Robotics or NRL team, work with them to incorporate fluid power into their robot and encourage them to apply for the NFPA Robotics Challenge Scholarship. 

For more information about the Robotics Challenge or to become a reviewer of applications for the scholarship in May, please contact Lynn Beyer at lbeyer@nfpa.com or (414) 778-3364.