[trilogy2826]

Let's assume for the sake of discussion a hypothetical situation in which 100% of your students that signed up for the team (1 or 100, doesn't matter) already were unequivocally convinced that they wanted to be an engineer since the age of 5 and have already signed up for their college of choice by the time they joined the team. The fact in this situation is that even if you aren't "converting" non-STEM students into STEM junkies, you are providing them with an experience and education that they will not get elsewhere. At least once a week, I hear students on our team that are undeniably good at math and science comment about learning something new in the implementation of math and science. We have statistics from even our short 3 years in FRC that show that even the already STEM focused students benefited to some extent from our program. Basically, IMHO, in the end the mix of students isn't as important as spreading the word of FIRST and giving the student a unique experience.