Hahah, yes... As Ashley mentioned above, FIRST is a very big thing on the WPI campus. It is the largest student organization, and 1 out of every 5 college freshman (about 150 people) sign up for the team at the new student orientation/activities fair. Now, do all those people actually remain on the team? No, of course not... but the initial interest was there (and most of that initial interest is from people who have been on previous teams).
Without going into much more detail than that (I could say sooo much more, heh), I'd like to tell a little anecdote:
So a few of us had gathered on the bottom floor of the campus center waiting for everyone else for our scheduled cabinet meeting. As more and more people show up, we see one of the WPI Police officers riding around on a Segway. He spots us, realizing that we are on the robotics team and rides over to have a chat with us.
Topics ranged from our current robot, to past years, to Segway (what else would there be to talk about? hehe). Anyway, the officer tells us that he was at the YMCA the other day and he happened to be wearing a "WPI" t-shirt. One of the people there approached him and asked, "So you're from WPI?" He told the fellow that he is a cop there, yes. The man then said, "Oh. So have you seen their FIRST robot? I attended a demo at the library with my kids a few months ago; that thing is AMAZING!"
It was quite a humbling experience to realize that people are actually beginning to recognize what FIRST is, and even talk about it 'on the street.' Makes ya feel good that doing 50+ demos/yr are having an impact.
