Grandville Public Schools Announces Five-Year Partnership With Westwood AI to Support the Grandville Robotics Competition Center

Global integrator of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence will provide $250,000 over five years to support the Grandville robotics facility, teams and events

GRANDVILLE, Mich., Jan. 15, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Grandville Public Schools is pleased to announce a long-term partnership with Westwood AI for naming rights to the District's new Robotics Competition Center.

Westwood AI is a global leader in identifying, leveraging and scaling solutions which allow companies and governmental units to seamlessly integrate Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence into their culture.  This west Michigan company, a key consultant to the State of Michigan, is providing funds to support advanced robotics development and competition at the Grandville center.  Naming rights sponsors for the facility, one of the largest built-for-purpose robotics competition centers in the country,   are being coordinated through the Grandville Academic Team Boosters.

Under the terms of the sponsorship arrangement, Westwood AI will provide $50,000 in annual funding over the five-year agreement.

"We are excited to have a partner for our robotics programs with deep machine learning and artificial intelligence experience.  We are grateful for their support of this competition space and we know it will create new advanced competition opportunities for our scholars" said Roger Bearup, Grandville Public Schools' Superintendent.

"We are so excited to be partnering with Grandville Public Schools and to provide funding that will positively impact students across the region through development of increasingly advanced robotics capabilities and competitions. We appreciate the Grandville RoboDawgs' long history of success and are very excited to see the evolution of this amazing program in this new competition center," said Dakoyta Greenman, Founder, Westwood AI. 

"The Grandville robotics program serves hundreds of Grandville Public School students, and thousands of competitors from across North America.  We have embraced change as a constant, and our programs expose students to leading-edge technology as we enhance their education. We started racing autonomous boats on area lakes in 2010.  More than a decade ago, our RoboDawgs were the first competitive robotics team to build, program, and fly autonomous aerial vehicles.  We are leaders in building autonomous competitive robots and we are very excited to partner with Westwood AI to develop more advanced robotics competitions using AI to enhance robot autonomy" said Doug Hepfer, GATB President.

About the Grandville Public Schools

Grandville Public Schools has been a leader in educational robotics for 25 years. Beginning with one high school robotics team in 1998, the program has now grown to include more than 100 teams.  More than 700 students participate on Grandville robotics teams, designing, building, and programming robotics for competitions around the world. Grandville fields more than 20 Lego League and VEX IQ teams made up of fourth through sixth graders. These students go on to participate in the VEX Robotics Competition at the middle school and high school. The district fields middle school drone teams in the RECF Aerial Drone Competition.  The Grandville High School RoboDawgs are one of the United States' largest and most accomplished high school robotics teams.  Grandville High School also fields teams that compete in the FIRST Robotics Competition, VEX AI, and Bell Advanced Vertical Robotics.  High school teams build autonomous vehicles to compete on land, water, and in the air. The RoboDawgs' high-altitude balloon program conducts research in near space and works to achieve long distance sustained high altitude balloon flight through neutral buoyancy.

About Westwood AI

Westwood AI began through an observation, that today's technical world moves at such an advanced pace that most Business Owners, Governmental Management, and Defense leadership have a very difficult time reviewing and communicating their needs with the advanced technical lexicon. We exist for the sole purpose to be that conduit between the two worlds while developing the clients understanding to a point that self-sustainability is not the benchmark but they are left with a vision of how their future could look. For more information, visit https://www.westwoodai.com/.

Contact:
Doug Hepfer
6165403239
371394@email4pr.com

SOURCE Grandville Public Schools