St. Louis, Missouri, is about to become the Mecca this week for over 15,000 robotically inclined students.

The FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Championship, an annual robot-building competition for school-age children from all over the world, takes place over four days and awards teams for building machines that compete in various mechanical and athletic challenges and games. This year, the championship is split into two separate regional events, with the second taking place this week in St. Louis, Missouri. All told, the FIRST Championship is expected to bring together almost 100,000 participants and spectators.

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Even though it gathers crowds that would max out an NFL stadium or two, you wouldn’t be remiss if you had never heard of FIRST. The annual event has flown under the radar since its inception in 1992. Dean Kamen, the prolific inventor responsible for the Segway, among hundreds of other patents, held the first competition at a modest school gym in Manchester, New Hampshire. Since then it has ballooned into a worldwide phenomenon that Kamen told The Economist could “compete with the Super Bowl, the World Series, and the Olympics.”

While there’s still some ground to cover before FIRST reaches that level, some people are starting to pay attention. Competing teams have garnered attention in local news as hometown heroes; there are groups from Michigan, Iowa, Texas, and many other places. Coverage is largely limited to local papers rooting for local students, but with ever-increasing attendance, the group is hopeful coverage will become far more widespread.

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The kids involved are doing it for more than just a little fun and sport. The championship, according to Kamen’s original vision, is about creating the next generation of innovators. The participants seem to agree.

“Robots are taking over the world,” competitor London Darce, a Houston student, said to Chron. “So you want to be the one that’s building them, not the one that they’re replacing.”

Late April leaves a conspicuous entertainment vacuum that the FIRST events seem willing to fill.

Maybe this attitude is what we need in a world in which technology is advancing at a breakneck rate, and where traditional jobs are threatened under the shadow of automation.

Darce isn’t the only one who expresses the importance of the competition beyond Houston and beyond high school. “The skills [that the students] are learning here are directly transferable to a whole host of careers where there is a shortage of people,” said current FIRST president Don Bossi to Chron.

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And maybe the world we live in is helping the competition grow as well. The enormous worldwide participation hasn’t slacked off and only looks as if it will increase in coming years. For all the difficulties posed by technology, the FIRST Robotics Championship is a fun reminder that the next generation has a firm hand on the wheel. No telling yet where it’s going — but with the Super Bowl and March Madness over and a long way to go before the World Series, late April leaves a conspicuous entertainment vacuum that the FIRST events seem willing to fill.

Cable networks, take note.