[gblake]

My experience with this idea (public, drive-a-robot, for fundraising) taught me to expect elementary school children, and an occasional middle school student, if the robots are smallish VRC/FTC or FLL/VIQ sized.

Choose a game, and especially a transmitter set-up that is dead-easy. Very young children will ask Mom & Dad for a chance to drive a robot, and for many of them Tank Drive controls are impossible (their brains can't tell their two thumbs to move in opposite directions, yet).

Choose a game that doesn't require N players to all start at the same time (people straggle up and leave at their own pace, not yours), and that doesn't require everything to halt for field-resets.

Pick a surface that is absolutely flat, or expect game pieces to have all run downhill about a minute after your guests start, and to stay there for the rest of the day.

Make the price really low. Don't shut out the people who need inspiration the most.

Selling cold bottled water (get permission), and giving away time with the robots might be a best business plan on a hot day. Setting up several sturdy chairs/benches for adults might make you popular also.

Have a way to track how long each guest (individually) gets to use a robot before the next guest gets a turn (cheap stop watches work well).

Have at least one roboteer per guest-robot, and have roboteer replacements for them. Also have a well-equipped pit crew for repairs, and for battery charging (borrow as many batteries as you can from other teams).

Have a method for queuing if you attract a crowd.

For the "game", I suggest creating an obstacle course that has small resetable chores spread along the course. Maybe keep track of the fastest times or high scores on a large whiteboard that you reset hourly. The chores can be simple pick-and-place, pushing, or driving tasks. Expect many guests to ignore the tasks.

If you are using VRC/FTC robots, don't think you have to deploy a typical FTC/VRC 12x12 field. With the typical tiles and walls you can vary that some. With more tiles and walls (or with replacements for either) you can build bigger and/or unusual shapes.

Giving out tiny prizes can be good for customer satisfaction.

Vary the robot designs a little bit. Big wheels, small wheels, mechanum drive, tricycle, bulldozer blade, arm+pincer, etc. Maybe an immobile crane or two?

Test drive the set-up before deploying it. What sounds good in your imagination, often flops in real life.

Remember ... Tiny kids who ignore everything you planned are likely to be your most numerous customers; and everything takes twice (or 4X) as long as you think it should.

Blake