Did BuzzU die?

[kmcclary]

I can't reach the BuzzU site anymore:
http://www.buzzu.org
Is it still around? That was a GREAT mentor resource!

I'm seeking mentors for our new Ann Arbor MI team, but keep getting "unknown local host name" every time I've tried to reach BuzzU in the last few weeks.

If someone knows someone there, please let them know of the problem, AND send me their direct email address so I can talk to them. Thanks!

(...And if anyone knows of any UM/EMU/WCC FIRST alumni that wish to become mentors, please let me know of them, too! :D )

Thanks!

- Keith

[Rob Colatutto]

i assure you buzz won't die, (at least i sure hope not) they are registered for bash at the beach, and they have a very big reputation, a lot of teams didn';t register yet

[Steve A.]

Buzz didnt die... Trust me!
The webserver seems to have been down for a while...they will be working on it I'm sure!!

-Steve
(Buzz Alumni)

[kmcclary]

Originally posted by Steve A.
Buzz didnt die... Trust me!
The webserver seems to have been down for a while...they will be working on it I'm sure!!

-Steve
(Buzz Alumni) Are you sure they even realize it's down? It's been offline for a while now, and no current member has replied yet. It's a great resource that I'd hate to see away too long. Heck... It could even be something as simple as a DNS problem that can be resolved with a few keystrokes by the right person.

Does anyone know the name of a current person there that I can email? I'm searching heavily for mentors right now for a rookie team, and could really use their help.

Thanks!

- Keith

[Rob Colatutto]

you know buzz is in conn. and your in mi. there are a lot of teams closer to you, why not look to one of them for mentor help?

[kmcclary]

Originally posted by Nataku
you know buzz is in conn. and your in mi. there are a lot of teams closer to you, why not look to one of them for mentor help? Ah... I'm not looking for a mentor from BuzzU itself. I'm searching for College Student Mentors at my local universities, and wish to access their student database.

FYI, BuzzU's server provides a wonderful resource. It is home to the FIRST College Advisor Database. They set up a centralized location for *all* interested FIRST Alumni graduating from FIRST team High Schools anywhere to register their intent to still be involved in FIRST.

Those that register broadcast to the world their their interest in helping other teams, and how to get ahold of them. The database has the names & emails of FIRST alumni wishing to be mentors, sorted by the university they are attending.

THAT is what I need to access. There are several major universities in and around Ann Arbor, including the UofM's Engineering School, EMU's Industrial Tech Dept, etc.

I need leads on finding "FIRST addict" students at each of my local universities that desperately desire "another FIRST fix" ;) and give them the chance to participate in FIRST again with a rookie local team. We could really use THEIR help to get our team started right. Role Modeling is important, and I'd love for them to come in and infect OUR team with "First Fever". :D

I was simply hoping to find them through BuzzU. Their server being down right now is just bad timing for me. I'm trying to reach them to let them know it IS down just in case they didn't know.

I hope it comes up again very soon.

- Keith

[mtaman02]

i know for one that if buzz retires i am the rest of my team plus all the other FIRST teams will be very upset. Buzz has a very big reputation to uphold they are known across the globe to all FIRST teams. Buzz won't and will not die I won't let it happen

Goes for u to RAGE. you also have a very big rep to uphold so do what u gotta do to make an appearance each year

[kmcclary]

Originally posted by Team522 Captain
i know for one that if buzz retires i am the rest of my team plus all the other FIRST teams will be very upset. Buzz has a very big reputation to uphold they are known across the globe to all FIRST teams. [That goes for RAGE too...] It is so cool when a team finds a niche to help all the other ones. Chief Delphi has this forum, BuzzU with their College Student FIRST Alumni Mentor Database, the FIRST Codex, various team's White Paper areas, etc...

IMO THAT is not only great altruism, it's one of the best forms of Gracious Professionalism. Each team that provides a simple service highly increases the synergism for all of us.

Any team can become "the place to go" for something! :) I hope our rookie team someday comes up with a single, simple, cool service or archive to provide for everyone. I'm going to encourage the website group to think of something to do.

Originally posted by Team522 Captain
Buzz won't and will not die I won't let it happen [/B] Cool... Does that mean you guys may consider inheriting the Advisor Locator database task if BuzzU ends up out the biz? (The "Buzz Biz"??? ;) )

- Keith

[Jon K.]

Buzz Won't die until they get cut from the UTC budget. But that could be at any time with the way things are going at UTC:eek:

[kmcclary]

Originally posted by jk2005
Buzz Won't die until they get cut from the UTC budget. But that could be at any time with the way things are going at UTC:eek: Can you reach someone there to tell them they're down, or at least find out what's wrong and tell us?

Thanks!

- Keith

[Jon K.]

That site has been down for months I wouldn't know who you would talk to to even tell someon. Sorry that I couldn't hel;p you out. They may have not even been able to afford to keep it up.

[kmcclary]

Originally posted by jk2005
That site has been down for months I wouldn't know who you would talk to to even tell someone. Sorry that I couldn't help you out. They may have not even been able to afford to keep it up. Oh. That's a little different than your last post.

Man, I'd hate to see that data lost!

Is there ANYONE here from the current BuzzU team (or knows someone from it) following this thread yet, that can tell us what's REALLY happening there?

Hmmm... If we can determine where the current data is at, and they CAN'T afford to keep it up, they may be willing to "will" the database for another team to take over.

**IF** it comes down to that, are there any volunteers here that would like to host the database? We're too new right now to do it. (Had this happened a year or two from now it might be a different story.)

- Keith

[Brandon Martus]

Originally posted by kmcclary
**IF** it comes down to that, are there any volunteers here that would like to host the database? We're too new right now to do it. (Had this happened a year or two from now it might be a different story.)
- Keith

We could probably find a place for it on chiefdelphi.com, if needed.

I'll look through some of my older e-mail logs. Someone at BuzzU.org e-mailed me asking for their link to be put on our main forum page...

[mtaman02]

Originally posted by kmcclary
It is so cool when a team finds a niche to help all the other ones. Chief Delphi has this forum, BuzzU with their College Student FIRST Alumni Mentor Database, the FIRST Codex, various team's White Paper areas, etc...

IMO THAT is not only great altruism, it's one of the best forms of Gracious Professionalism. Each team that provides a simple service highly increases the synergism for all of us.

Any team can become "the place to go" for something! :) I hope our rookie team someday comes up with a single, simple, cool service or archive to provide for everyone. I'm going to encourage the website group to think of something to do.

Cool... Does that mean you guys may consider inheriting the Advisor Locator database task if BuzzU ends up out the biz? (The "Buzz Biz"??? ;) )

- Keith


to be perfectly honest i think if buzz needed any help the best place to go for it is CD. we do not have enough space on the Home pc currently being used as a webserver to host there page as well. we would like to be assisstance but i think all our team is good for is if u need to borrow any tools at a comp we would let u borrow them ;) i hope that thats all thats wrong is a webserver problem

[Joel J]

"After many hosting problems we are poised to be back soon." Those are the words of Buzz.. Now lets smile for the suit!

[kmcclary]

Originally posted by Joel J.
"After many hosting problems we are poised to be back soon." Those are the words of Buzz.. Now lets smile for the suit! All RIGHT! :D

I'm glad they're going to be doing it again!

OOC, Did they give you any idea on a date for when they expect it to be up again?

- Keith

[Joe Ross]

The message that Joel quoted is from their main page, http://www.buzzrobotics.org.

IIRC, they've been having hosting trouble for over a year.

It wouldn't be very hard to duplicate what buzzu does at another site, however, there are privacy issues with exchanging the existing data.

[Katie Atiyeh]

Hi

Thank you for showing your interest and concern in BuzzU. Currently, our websites are down. They will be back and operating in the near future. As of right now we need to get our web space worked out, and we’re working with students and mentors to do that. I can not give you an exact date, but it should be relatively soon. We aren’t dying, we just have a lot to work out, like always we will still continue to provide our help with FIRST Aid, gracious professionalism and all that we believe we stand for. Thank you very much, sorry about the delay, and good luck to all.

-Katie Atiyeh
Buzz 175

[kmcclary]

Originally posted by Katie Atiyeh
Thank you for showing your interest and concern in BuzzU. Currently, our websites are down. They will be back and operating in the near future. [...] I can not give you an exact date, but it should be relatively soon. We aren’t dying, we just have a lot to work out [...] I'm sorry to see that after a couple of years, www.BuzzU.org still seems to be down. (Darn!)

Did it ever come up under another address? If so, please tell us all where we can find it!

I hope you guys can bring back the mentoring database soon. Our team (for one) could sure use your help in finding some more Ann Arbor MI area FIRST-savvy college students who still wish to be involved in the program to come and join our team.

Thanks!

- Keith

[patrickrd]

Why not move the service to ChiefDelphi? I think it has been down long enough, that the people that originally set it up at Buzz must have graduated from the team or moved onto other things.

All it takes really is a single MySQL table and a relatively simple php script. I'm sure both MySQL and PHP are already installed on ChiefDelphi for these forums. I suspect even if Brandon doesn't have time to set up the script, there are plenty of you out there who know PHP, and could get it basically functional and send to Brandon. I would have been able to do it a couple years ago but my php/mysql skills have been quickly deteriorating over that time.

I think this is an ideal place (aside from on FIRST's site directly) to put a BuzzU-like system up, since there are so many visitors. Unfortunately, it probably will be hard to recover the original BuzzU list... but maybe can be retrieved from that web history site? (I forget what the URL is).

Anyway, let me know what you think. In my opinion the BuzzU system is too useful not to have working. It helped me make some contacts to get team 639 started 3 years ago.

- Patrick

[Erin Rapacki]

I wanted to wait until the sight was ready but...

Understanding how valuable BuzzU was and seeing that it was down, I had plans to incorporate a similar system onto my new NU-TRONS website called "FIRST College Connect."

Because we only need one centralized website for this service, I am making sure no one else has gone ahead to make this system work for as of now... but if BuzzU is brought back up, I'll probably mesh all the information together so if one website has problems, there will be a backup system going.

The sight would be ready by November, and I'm using it to get my team more involved in the overall FIRST program.

Thanks,


ByE

erin