Mississippi State University’s Bagley College of Engineering recently received a $175,000 grant from the Toyota USA Foundation, and has plans to expand its outreach to middle and high school students throughout Mississippi.
The grant funding will be put toward the Boosting Engineering Science and Technology (BEST) Robotics program. The BEST program serves 25 teams at local schools and aims to expand to 30 teams this year.
The grant from the Toyota USA Foundation is the largest made to the Mississippi BEST Robotics program to date.
The program encourages participation in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) field, with a focus primarily on engineering.
Students in the BEST program participate in a six-week robotics competition. At the competition, students design, build and present a robot created to complete specific tasks
with real world applications.
“Along with building skills for the next generation of jobs, the competition also helps increase community awareness for the role engineering plays in innovation,
manufacturing and community growth,” said Michael Medalla, manager of the Toyota USA Foundation.