h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Nice entry, I was not aware of the competition, although I was a great fan of "College Bowl" decades ago when it was on national television weekly.

Some friends brought their highschool son to Houston a while back for a robotics competition:

http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/

As an engineer myself, this sounded like an interesting little experience. We scheduled to meet during the actual competition, but with no arranged meeting, I decided to drive over the first practice day, thinking I could surely find them in whichever convention hall room the event was held.

The parking attendant directed me into the ASTRODOME, which was filled with miles of booths and about 10,000 people, all on the floor (the playing area, not in the seats). And that turned out to be just the pit area, the actual competition was held in the adjacent Reliant Stadium, a massive state of the art NFL arena - four large robot arenas surrounding a large central stage, huge audio/visual screens, kids carting around 120 lb robots everywhere, blaring rock music ...

I never found my friends that day.

Wow, talk about sensory overload! Sounds cool though - not that I'm a science person, but it still sounds cool.

They televise the AL matches on our local television station, but I'd be pretty surprised if anyone watched them.