I may not be able to add you a specific bullet, but I can tell you what I think the next step is.
To simply add my spin to some of the information you have posted:
We've seen in previous years (i.e. 2002-2005 as you have stated in your rather well-researched information, I may add
) that an emphasis has been placed on team participation and sponsor participation.
Those who can be directly involved in FIRST...by sponsoring and joining, and mentoring.
We recently moved (in 2006) to a trend to getting those around us who could not directly participate in FIRST (though I'd love to see sons and daughters of any future U.S. president involved in the organization) to those who could make FIRST a better program for those already involved. By involving government, you can get to those who can make some of the biggest difference in the organization. We also see the idea of the FIRST competitions as persuasion in and of themselves. What better way to share your passion than to bring someone to a competition and show them the energy and positive difference that is FIRST is there?
Granted, keeping both of these goals in mind still, we have yet another step to make.
- 2008: Get your community/school/workplace/WHATEVER -- as a whole -- to a competition.
Could we see an increasing focus into getting people just to know about FIRST and make it the dream it was originally created for--and that is a fully-fledged national "sport," with a team in every high school, and matches being watched on major broadcast networks, and all of the things that come with the abolishment of negative stigma towards our passion, and a global involvement in FIRST?
After all, when you love something as much as we love FIRST, you want to scream it to the world. Literally.
To quote Carl Sagan,
"After all, when you're in love, you want to tell the world. The idea that scientists shouldn't talk about their science to the public seems to me bizarre."
This can so easily be applied to FIRST. We
are in love with this organization--and rightly so!
I could also possibly see your workplace becoming a venue. I heard of a team that built their robot in their cafeteria due to lack of a suitable workplace elsewhere. Could we see homework of having an open house--that is truly open?
To satisfy the original post's question of what I, personally, would do: I would have to say, get as many people as I can to Palmetto. Living close to our competition area is such a wonderful stroke of luck for us, and I shouldn't see why all THREE schools of D5 Robotics shouldn't be in the Colonial Center on Saturday. It's not too far, and it's free. I would use the wonderful starting points FIRST has given me to advance FIRST in my community: through word of mouth, mostly. FIRST teaches us skills that we can use anywhere, and I think we should proudly demonstrate them such that people should have to
ask us where we learn it from, as it is so remarkable.
I hope this hasn't become rambling, but that would be my $0.015.