[petek]

Let's add professional organizations to the list of potential participants, too. I'm working with some groups (the Society for Biomolecular Screening, the Laboratory Robotics Interest Group and the Association for Laboratory Automation) who are either starting or interested in doing outreach to high school students to inform them of career opportunities in science and laboratory automation. We're just getting off the ground right now, and I think it would be easy to sell them on a FIRST Robotics Conference as an ideal forum for getting them together with FIRSTers. I would think that the "mainstream" organizations (IEEE, ASME, et al) would be up for it, too.