I'm a 33 year old programmer and DB admin. I came across
the botmag.com article on my website (my site grabs rss feeds on new technology). I love this stuff and had no idea that Vex existed. After I read the article I ran to the local RadioShack and practically cleaned them out (over $550 worth of Vex stuff).
Some more google searches led me to these forums. I'd also never heard of FIRST. It's great to see these competitions are going on at the high-school level. I always thought it was just a few of the college engineering schools that had competitions like this. Anyway, I'll keep lurking around here to pick up some pointers as I design with my new Vex kit.
I hope more people like me saw
that article and raided their local RadioShack. Now that I know about it I'd really be disappointed if RS started pulling it from the shelves.