Cornell is generally considered one of the hubs in the united states for the world RoboCup competition... However I think it was started at Carnegie Mellon University if my memory is correct. Anyway, Cornell has also been putting in effort into starting similar RoboHockey and RoboFlag (Hockey and Capture the Flag, respectively) competitions. Cornell's been world champs two of the last three years. (the 2002 advisor for our FIRST team is also the advisor of the Robocup team).
It's a great competition, but it's geared for college and is not nearly as mechanically-oriented as FIRST. Rather, computer science and electrical engineer aspects are just as (if not more) important than the mechanical aspects. Each Robocup team must build five robots that compete autonomously (no human control whatsoever during the match) and play soccer with a golf ball on a field about the size of a ping-pong table. If you are interested in this field of automous machinery or feedback control systems(Cornell calls this area of study "mechatronics") you should definately consider Cornell as a college choice. There are several faculty members who research this area and we've got 4 or 5 teams that make autonomous things (submarines and helicopters in addition to the robocup, robohockey, roboflag). I will be studying mechatronics as my concentration for my mechanical engineering degree.
For more information about Robocup or this type of VERY COOL stuff, I'd visit:
http://robocup.mae.cornell.edu/
- Patrick
...remember, this is coming from someone that spent the better part of an afternoon playing with an omniwheel--not assembling, not disassembling, just playing. - Billfred [more] 
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