[jvriezen]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Here's an even better way to phrase it: "What questions can I answer for you?"

My experience (may be cultural by region of U.S.) is that this works for some people, but for most of those that are truly uninformed about what is going on, they know so little that they don't even know what type of question to ask, so they simply answer 'No thanks'. You have to be more proactive and answer some basic questions without them asking them.

"Hi. Did you know that all these robots were built by high school teams in six weeks?" (No, really?) "Yes, the first Saturday in January ... "

or

"Hi, have you ever been to a robotics competition like this one?" (No.) "Let me tell you a bit about how this competition works... "