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6 Teams Chosen to Compete for $35K in First-Ever FirePoint C3 Challenge

5 University & 1 High School Team Move to Next Phase of Competition to Spur Innovation Within the Army's Next-Generation Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

WICHITA, Kan., Feb. 20, 2020 — (PRNewswire) —  The FirePoint Innovations Center at Wichita State University today announced six teams have been selected to compete for up to $35,000 in funding in the first-ever FirePoint C3 Challenge. All six will now move forward to the next phase of the competition, creating a Statement of Work for their project, and then on to Proof of Concept, before ultimately demonstrating their innovations to the U.S. Department of Defense.

The C3 Challenge brings student designers, engineers and innovators together with the U.S. Army and industry partners to converge, collaborate and create advanced technologies to fuel the Army Futures Command's product and workforce development initiatives. The program is designed to surface innovative technologies that support the Army's modernization efforts, fuel development of the Army's next generation of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), and build the future STEM talent pipeline for the industry.

The six teams have each submitted design concepts in one of three component areas within a UAV subsystem—either lift, energy or airframe. To ensure teams have the resources to develop Proof of Concepts, FirePoint will provide up to $10,000 for project development to each team.

The participating teams are:

"We're extremely pleased with this crop of competitors and really intrigued by their proposals," said Steve Cyrus, Manager of Technology Collaborations with FirePoint. "We essentially gave them a blue sky mandate—they could propose anything they wanted within those three functional areas—and we're eager to see how these concepts evolve and come together to benefit the Army's technology pipeline."

After the Sub-Section Development phase is complete in March, up to four teams will then be selected to move forward in the competition and begin collaborating remotely on their designs and integration using Dassault Systemes world-class 3D design and modeling platform. They'll also go behind-the-scenes to see the design and production floors in action at the leading companies in American aviation, manufacturing and aerospace and learn first-hand about career opportunities available in these organizations, as well as the Army aviation community.

Ultimately, the teams will collaboratively design and fabricate an integrated working UAV prototype for final presentation to the Army in February 2021. But the real goal of C3 is to develop the STEM workforce of tomorrow by giving students hands-on, real-world experience and networking opportunities in the aerospace industry, while surfacing for the Army the most innovative designs residing in labs around the country.

The C3 Challenge is sponsored by the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation and Missile Center (CCDC AvMC), with support from Dassault Systemes and America Makes, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute.

To learn more about the C3 Challenge, visit https://firepoint-c3.com/.

About FirePoint
FirePoint is a partnership between Wichita State University and the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, Aviation and Missile Center (CCDC AvMC) that accelerates joint technology development, transfer and commercialization among CCDC, universities, industry and other government organizations. FirePoint aims to support the educational, commercial and workforce development necessary to drive innovation and collaboration across the key Army modernization priorities. The C3 Challenge, along with other FirePoint initiatives, support collaboration, partnering, and STEM workforce development to ensure modern Army combat readiness and overmatch in the multidomain battlespace. For more information, visit www.firepoint.info.

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SOURCE FirePoint

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Company Name: FirePoint, U.S. Army
Web: https://www.firepoint.info