Middle College and Early College Grant (FY 2026-27)

The Engineering & Technical Career Readiness MicroGrant 2026 from eGrove Education awards five educational institutions across the United States and Canada an in-kind package valued at up to $35,000 each: a free site license for the Spatial Vis technical sketching and spatial visualization training software (covering up to 2,000 students), virtual professional development for implementing educators, and ongoing support for a full school year. Spatial visualization is the ability to think in 3D and is a foundational, often undertaught skill for engineering, CAD, drafting, design, advanced manufacturing, skilled trades, architecture, and construction pathways. eGrove Education reports that a controlled classroom trial showed students using Spatial Vis increased visualization ability and comfort with CAD and shop tools, and improved their ability to communicate design ideas. Through this MicroGrant the company seeks to expand access to research-based instructional tools that strengthen engineering and technical education and workforce readiness. Applications are open to middle schools, high schools, CTE programs, community colleges, and other educational institutions preparing students for engineering and technical career pathways. The application is a short online form. Submissions are due October 5, 2026 (extended from the original September 28, 2026 deadline), and winners will be announced in mid-October 2026. Note that this is an in-kind product-and-services award (software, professional development, and implementation support), not a cash grant.

The Farm Robotics Challenge is a student competition rather than a research grant, and the distinction determines who should spend time on it: the money flows to teams of enrolled students working under a faculty or teacher advisor, not to principal investigators, and the deliverable is a working robotic system demonstrated in an agricultural setting rather than a paper. Organized by UC ANR Innovate with the NSF-USDA AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems and backed by California's Jobs First initiative, the challenge asks teams to build autonomous systems or robotic attachments addressing real production tasks - planting, weeding, harvesting, pest management, field mapping and data collection. Total prize funding exceeds $100,000, anchored by a $50,000 Grand Prize presented by The Reservoir; in a recent cycle that grand prize was structured as a SAFE investment rather than a straight cash award, which matters because it implies an expectation that the winning team may incorporate, and teams uninterested in commercialization should confirm the current cycle's award instrument before entering. Three divisions keep the competition tractable across education levels: Division I for four-year universities with a cap of 50 percent graduate students per team, Division II for community colleges and trade schools, and Division III for middle and high school teams in grades 7 through 12. Every team requires an advisor, typically faculty, staff, a graduate student or a teacher. The cycle runs long, which is the main planning consideration - pre-registration opens August 3, 2026, project proposals are due November 13, 2026, final projects are due May 2, 2027 and awards are presented in June 2027, meaning roughly nine months of sustained student effort across two academic terms. Scale is real: a recent edition drew 96 teams from 13 countries. This is a good fit for agricultural engineering, robotics and CS programs seeking a structured capstone with industry exposure, and a poor fit for anyone looking for research funding on a normal grant timeline.

Support for Programs in Developing World is sponsored by Conservation, Food and Health Foundation. The Conservation, Food and Health Foundation supports projects and applied research that protect the environment, improve food production, and promote public health in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, and the Middle East. It prioritizes projects that generate local or regional solutions, advance local leadership, develop capacity of local organizations, and address under-funded issues. This can include applied research in agricultural sciences.