I was a mentor for a scrappy, underfunded robotics team of about 12 9th-11th grade students until the season was cancelled. One of my favourite parts of the experience was pointing out the "theory" behind the "practical". "What you're dealing with is called X and this is why it's important" was an increasingly common reply I'd give.

One of _many_ examples was when the software lead came to me excitedly and said he got basic autonomy working, but the robot wouldn't drive the same distance every time. We talked about open vs. closed loop systems, their wheel encoders, and PID loops. I'm convinced that when he goes to study any of those things in university, because of this real-world exposure to them, they will be far easier to grok.