First off, the following are my impressions nothing more. Take them with a grain of salt.
1) Utter Communication Breakdown - for a session they wanted community opinion and feedback they did a bad job of getting people there. It showed up on none of the schedules I could find and the various communications (both here on CD and to the University reps) did not contain a room number. The GWCC is a HUGE place and we checked several panels before finding the right one (tucked into a corner btw). Keep this in mind if I seem too negative, this seriously lowered my overall impression straight off the bat. (Keep this in mind when doing things, if a person cannot find your session they tend to get irritated)
2) Concept - The idea is that a FIRST style competition would be started at the university level to help keep interest in STEM among college students.
3) Hardware -
BlimpDuino
+Very low cost ($89)
+Safe, even in the case of major failure there is no chance of it falling and crashing to the ground.
+Stable Platform, not a ton of jarring and shaking around.
-SLOW
-Kinda boring
-Very limited mechanical modifications
-Limited payload
Quadcopter
+Fast
+"Sexy"
+Very Custom
+ Much MUCH Higher payload
-Expensive ($300+)
-Not safe, put a finger in the blades of one of these, it will hurt.
-Fragile, if this thing crashes or loses power and then crashes it will break.
HiTechnic Blimp Kit (Couldn't find a link)
52" Envelope
3DC motors (No clue on amperage)
3 axis accel
Digital Compass
Ultrasonic Sensor
1 Mb External Flash Memory
2x sensor ports (2 Digital In 2 Digital Out 2 Analog In per port)
1 Servo
32 MHz processor
128k Flash
16k Ram
3) Concerns Raised By Audience
Similar competitions. (SAE, Micromouse)
Mostly CS/CE (with blimp). Not much in the way of mechanical engineering stuff.
How will you make these things interesting to students that grew up playing with 150lb robots?
(Personal)Feels more like a multidisciplinary (CE/CS) engineering course to teach sensor fusion and various AI concepts.
<opinion>
It is my opinion that this system is cool, I would love to play with the stuff. But it will not have the sex appeal of an FRC robot*. Additionally it simply is NOT mechanical enough for some teams. Personally, as a CS guy I find fully auton stuff very very cool. The more of a standardized hardware we have the easier it is because it means things are less likely to break. Now, perhaps this system would work well as a small sub competition for programmers at the FRC/FTC level but it would not satisfy the hunger of college level FIRSTers.
Now, as I mentioned, I would love to see these things enter into the classroom as a tool in educator's arsenal. Even at the high school and middle school level. If we could make some good libraries and simple drag and drop interfaces I could see middle school students LOVING them (as a great way of getting them interested in STEM)
Now, these are just my opinions, they do not represent the feelings of any other attendees or the presenters. My personal feeling is that this will NOT become College Level FRC. It is cool but it is not FIRST.
*This is based on a male perspective but if you notice what excites men it is fast cars, big explosions, and big engines. FRC meets those needs. Robots are fast, hit hard, and have a lot of power. (And they are shiny) This is imho part of the reason that FTC/VEX are not as effective as inspirational tools as FRC bots.
</opinion>
Hope this is enough information here for the curious folks. If you have specific questions I will do my best to answer them.