[RaMoore]

I have had the opportunity to go and speak in a Japanese High School twice about Pre-college robotics, specifically FRC. (2001, 2008)

The contact I have had is in a private college prep school in Kyoto with a pretty strong robotics club. There seem to be a number of different competitions in Japanese schools. The one that they were working on when I was there last was a autonomous soccer type game.

The major problems with trying to integrate FRC is high school is a much more critical time in their student's careers.

They have to study very very hard to get the highest scores on their entrance exams in order to go to top colleges, top colleges lead to better jobs and so on. Once in college everything gets easier from there. On top of that entrance exams fall on the first week or two of FRC build (if I'm recalling right). During this time the schools pretty much completely shut down.

FTC and VEX would both be possible to integrate, but the "out of the box" type solutions might not be received as well as the do it yourself nature, or at least buy it yourself nature, of other competitions.

That just some quick thoughts...