The Woodie Flowers Memorial Grant Recipient - Videet Mehta
March 15, 2024
The Woodie Flowers Memorial Grant seeks to further the legacy of the late Dr. Woodie Flowers, a beloved Pappalardo Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Co-Chair of the FIRST® Executive Advisory Board, and Distinguished Advisor to FIRST , who championed and implemented a hands-on learning philosophy that reshaped engineering and design education. Only students who have excelled in FIRST by winning the FIRST® Tech Challenge or FIRST® Robotics Competition Dean’s List Award, are eligible to apply for this prestigious portable and renewable annual Grant.
The Woodie Flowers Memorial Grant Selection Committee once again is impressed with the caliber, passion, and accomplishments of the FIRST Dean’s List Winners who applied for the Grant and has selected Darius De Biagi as the 2025 Grant recipient.
Darius is a four-year participant in FIRST Tech Challenge and FIRST Robotics Competition. He is a Dean’s List winner from FIRST Robotics Competition Team 9642 "I.N.T. Robotics" located in New York City. Darius is a diligent and successful student who has shared his impressive engineering accomplishments as a FIRST leader and mentor in and around his community. Darius intends to pursue Computer Science with a specialization in AI and Robotics when he heads to college. He also looks forward to staying involved with FIRST in an essential way by continuing to mentor teams in his community and building connections with other FIRST alumni.
Woodie’s widow and Scholarship Committee member, Margaret Flowers, had this to share about Darius’s selection:
"The Committee was highly impressed with Darius' astute observations on why FIRST is such a powerful experience that prepares students to get anywhere. We were also impressed by the innovative ideas, creativity, discipline and graciousness Darius exhibited while leading his team. In describing the FIRST community, Darius observed that it takes a very strong individual to be gracious in competition, particularly after spending months and even years honing skills to compete. We trust that this scholarship grant will enable Darius in all his future undertakings to, ‘be strong, truly,’ as he observed Gracious Professionals do.”
To learn more about the Woodie Flowers Memorial Grant, visit our website.