[EricH]

This is just a theory... but it might actually work.

If you could show a video of a robot that is evidently well-engineered beating a not-so-well engineered bot, then you could point out that a lot of teams are like the latter team. They know what they want to do, but have trouble making it happen. But with the engineers' help, they can take their robot to the upper level.

For that matter, see if you can borrow a local team's robot that could use some help with design or execution for a day. Try to borrow some team members, too. Doesn't have to be the whole team, just a couple reasonably knowledgeable students. Have them show up at said presentation, but kind of sit back a bit. Let the engineers figure out what could be done better and how to do it better--then it's time for the kids (or you) to step in and explain that they don't know how to/have the facilities to do that, and invite the engineers to help them out.

And, if you have a list of teams that would like help, post it. Have a place where interested engineers can put their contact info, and try to steer them to teams in their area.

This isn't a message about FIRST and mentoring (if I was going to do that, I'd look in the Kickoff speeches the last two years), it's about getting the interest of the engineers. And nothing attracts an engineer like a piece of engineering, especially if it can be improved.