What a great question
. I've actually been thinking about this for a while. With a smaller and smaller percentage of teams being able to compete at Championships, I think that the Convention will allow more teams to attend Championships without having to compete. Other organizations do this and I'm sure that we can come up with a good way to make it work for FIRST.
One of the things that could be done is to have booths for companies around the nation to set up displays and demos. FIRST national sponsors would get a booth, others would pay for the opportunity. Companies have asked for this opportunity for years at Champs and most have not been able to. These companies may include engineering, technology, education, and others. Colleges and universities could also get booths. These are already available to those who give large scholarships but others would be willing to pay a smaller amount for a booth.
These companies could even have recruiters there for summer internships as well as full time positions for those looking for a career change or the start of their career
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The Hall of Fame could be moved into this convention setting to bring a bit of FIRST into the convention which would free up some space in the pits area.
As for the meetings and lectures of sorts, more guest lecturers could be brought in to include more topics on a larger scale. The FIRST topics are important and should be expanded, maybe one on pneumatics, more on sensors and programming, etc. Some on awards like WFA, Chairman's, and on fundraising and such. I think it would also be good to have some outside speakers on topics important to the FIRST community. Maybe some college acceptance counselors to talk about getting into college or guest speakers from industry talking about what they do for a living. Some examples from different engineering, technology, and business fields who can talk about their jobs and the things they work on.
I think that would give a well rounded conference that would improve not only the quality of FIRST teams but would also give some good information to all attending. This would draw a bigger crowd at the Championship event and be able to get more people to see what FIRST is all about.
I hope this made some kind of sense
. These are a few ideas i've come up, probably with more to come.