[KenWittlief]

I think maybe part of the reason that most FIRST students on FIRST teams go after ME degrees is because the FIRST program lends itself more towards mechanical design than it does towards the electrical stuff.

Most of the electrical stuff on the robot is off the shelf or included in the KOPs. If we had to design our own control systems, our own sensors, our own Victors and spikes... that would be different.

By contrast, FIRST provides a KOP frame and drive train, but all teams end up designing some kind of extended frame, manipulators, ball collectors and shooters...

The FIRST program requires the mechanical team to really get into it, you must, you have no choice.

For the electrical team everything you need for a basic robot, including sensors and control, is given to you. I think as a result FIRST teams tend to become more mechanically oriented.

I left out SW, which can go either way - you can build a really fine robot using the default code, or you could re-write all your code from scratch and have you robot do some wonderous things.

But to answer your question, due to the nature of the challenge I think FIRST has the strongest attraction for mechanically inclined students (and mentors).