Five years ago, Gavin Gardner was a Michigan State University engineering student researching next-generation drone technology as part of a NASA grant. Garder expected the research to be demanding – but he was surprised that navigating the financial side of the work presented an even greater challenge.

Although Gardner was used to leading fellow students in a lab setting, he and his team were completely new to things like creating budgets, handling large sums of money, and promoting their work for crowdfunding.

That’s why demonstrating both engineering and entrepreneurship skills are major tentpoles of NASA’s University Student Research Challenge (USRC), an initiative that provides grants to teams of college students interested in helping the agency realize its aeronautical research goals.

“Half the battle is building your product,” Gardner said recently.…