[JesseK]

IMO FRC teams pragmatically generate, at best, better problem solvers. It doesn't matter if the student is an English major in college because he/she was on the CA team or business team. Being motivated to participate and succeed in a large-scale project is what benefits any student, regardless of that student's educational background. Better problem solvers nets us a better-prepared employment force that can handle changes in industry, ergo can keep themselves employed (and on a more selfish note, will keep my 401k portfolio from tanking every few years...).

Yet regarding producing new Engineers -- I recall reading a study where most engineers in college were already curious or motivated to enter engineering before they entered high school. I'll have to find the article. In practice, this seems to hold true since our team has had much better recruiting opportunities with the kids we (and by extension, the county) have already inspired with FLL/VEX/SeaPerch at the lower grades.

This engineer recruitment cycle may seem like we're taking the 'easy' road by not trying to recruit high students who aren't already interested in engineering -- yet we don't see it that way. We see it as simply inspiring new engineers at a younger age, then using our robotics programs to better prepare them for hard problem solving, with the hope that most of them will continue on to engineering as a career. Additionally, many of the high school students recruit their friends, and also go to the FLL teams and mentor them, creating a sort of organic self-sustaining generator of new engineers. It works for us, and tbh I'm glad we have the problem of 'too many applicants' every year.