The three-part grant to ARISS covers five years and totals nearly $1.3 million. According to the ARRL Letter, part 1 of the grant will pay for taking an ARISS-developed wireless electronics technology kit for students from prototype to operational program; Part 2 will fund educator workshops for teachers planning to use these kits in preparation for ARISS contacts, and Part 3 will help support the ongoing costs of setting up and conducting amateur radio contacts between students and space station crews.
The Letter also reports that the Oregon HamWAN organization has received an $88,000 ARDC grant to expand its high-speed digital network in the Portland area and to improve amateur radio emergency communications capabilities between Portland and the state capital in Salem.
Moving down the coast to California, ARDC is giving the Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club $35,550 to build a ham station at the new Chrisman California Islands Center in Carpinteria. The installation will include a touchscreen-controlled interactive presentation on amateur radio and other wireless technologies to engage visitors when the station is not staffed.
Finally, the group is providing a nearly $10,000 to a California high school teacher to purchase Raspberry Pi computers and Arduino microcontrollers for his computer science students and to turn part of his classroom into a makerspace accessible to all of the school's students.
