[popnbrown]

Summing up a bunch of other points, opportunities for serious engineering students exist already, in research and actual classes. I would still take FIRST College (what're we calling it now?) to be an extra-curricular and additive to anything you do as an engineering student. And since FIRST's mission isn't about Robotics (just happens that's the best discipline to spread their mission), and is more about spreading science and technology, and creating the next generation of engineers. I would expect an equal weight to the robot building design as well as the presentation aspect.

I mentioned this earlier about a Engineering Design award, where the award should be based not only on the actual design of the robot, but equivalently to the presentation of the design.

I would also like to see another award similar to chairman's, showcasing how a team acts in its community and affects others to become inspired by science and technology. Because this again, is part of FIRST's mission (and really what makes it different).

Taking all the same aspects of FRC to the college level but upping the actual science and technology behind the robot and including a "conference paper", would be really optimal.