We're all familiar with the dire warnings about the shortage of homegrown engineering talent in the United States and how our country is falling further and further behind Asia in producing the knowledge workers needed to create and occupy the jobs of the 21st Century. Last weekend in Hartford, and in a few dozens other cities across the U.S. in February and March, those worries are temporarily cast aside.

The regional FIRST Robotics Competition was held, which sent teams to the national competition at the Georgia Dome, to be held in mid-April. The acronym is For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, a program that nurtures student interest in a fun setting and demystifies the world of engineering and technology. NASA, good corporate citizens, high schools and hundreds of volunteers and their charges donate money and devote thousands of hours to make the program work.

In a convention center that simultaneously held a meeting for sleep disorders, this was not an event for the semi-conscious. With hundreds of kids, mentors and parents, the atmosphere, enthusiasm -- and noise --  resembled  a sporting event.

The kids in the program have a blast writing programs, designing websites, machining metal, and otherwise turning 120 pounds of steel, composites, motors and wires into a functioning robot. All of this while they're learning project management and honing teamwork skills that will only benefit them when they enter the workforce. The robotics game, carrying and manipulating an oversized beach ball around a course in two-minute heats, is almost incidental to the larger life lessons.

After two years in FIRST, my son is thinking about an engineering career, something that might never have occurred to him otherwise. He may or may not become an engineer. He most likely won't work in the powery industry. Which leads to the question: Why not?

A simple reason is Connecticut, and by extension, New England, is home to large aerospace companies, defense contractors and other high-tech firms that provide the money and mentoring talent that influence these budding engineers. But perhaps a bit discouraging is that a quick walk through the "pits," where teams assemble for repairs and strategizing between events, showed an almost complete absence of banners and corporate logos from the power industry -- the companies that in five to seven years are going to compete with other high-tech companies for those same students who were in the Connecticut Convention Center last week and eventually pursued engineering degrees.

That message may be getting through. While recently researching an article that I am writing for EnergyBiz magazine about workforce development, I came across the good folks at the industry consortium Center for Energy Workforce Development. FIRST Robotics made it on the agenda of the organization's summit last Fall and is part of its outreach strategy going forward. A small step, for sure, but a necessary one, if budding engineers are to consider Robots for Energy in their career plans.