[patrickrd]

Originally posted by KenWittlief
You had a great idea - proven by the fact that its already being done - but done on a much higher level!

It is true there are competitions at a much higher level, for example here at Cornell, we have Moonbuggy, Autonomous Submarine, Robocup (robotic soccer), HEV (Hybrid electric vehicle), FSAE Racecar, autonomous space vehicle lander, and several more I can't remember the names of. All these are great projects to be involved in, but most are hard to get into until your Junior or Senior year in college (or even a masters program)... Simply because you do not have the engineering background during your first two years to contribute to the teams. Our teams require applications and interviews to get on the teams, and it is very rare to get on a team as a freshman.

I think a FIRST college competition would be a great supplement to introductory and sophomore-level engineering classes. There are so many of these basics that can be applied to a FIRST college competition, such as gear ratios, stress and failure analysis, basic programming, etc... After the sophomore year, I'd recommend trying to get involved with some of the more complex projects at your college.

-Patrick