Making FIRST Viral
 

Here we are about to start another year of FIRST. FLL begins in a month or so and FTC right after that. Then a few months later we have FRC back in our lives again. So I have a very very serious question on my mind that I think someone out there needs to be paid to think of the right solution.

"How can we make FIRST viral?"

You know we are still the world's most unknown competition and organization that inspires kids to achieve great things.

Take a look at YouTube for a second...type in FIRST Robotics and search by editing your search settings to sort by view count. What do you see? I see that our only high view count video is the i.am.FIRST campaign...which still only has a little over 200,000 views. What else do you see...oh yeah... A DARPA video that has been on the net less than a month that has well over 2 million views. Tell me...why haven't we got a video that even approaches that kind of view count. I watched that Darpa video...It's amazing stuff, but I can honestly say I was more entertained by the Robonauts reveal video than I was of that Darpa video and that video only has 63,000 views.

This is a legitimate problem. I'd much rather see FIRST videos on VINE than videos of people doing the freaking Gas Pedal dance.

Goal for 2014. Get me one FIRST related video over 1,000,000 views. Then we have accomplished something. Which will only be the beginning of the journey.

My thoughts may not make the most sense but I think most of you will understand.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

What FIRST needs the most is more recognition. The problem is that nobody will go on youtube and search "high school robot competition". In order to have people searching for FIRST, they need to have heard of it. In my opinion, the championship needs to end up on TV again, like on ESPN like it used to be. Then, people would get interested in it, and look it up on the internet.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Then how does the DARPA video have 2,000,000 views. It's got to be possible somehow. A view count like that doesn't just fall out of the sky. How did it happen?

Television networks aren't going to want to televise an event that can't even hold it's own in a YouTube channel. Television networks are really only concerned with high quality content so they they get a high viewer count so that you can watch the advertisements that companies pay the television company to put in-between content segments. You want FIRST back on TV? Solve this problem first.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Because the DARPA video is self-explanitory, government-related, and an impressive feat of technology. 118's unveil video is only the last of those three. Random Joe not knowing what FIRST is or what Ultimate Ascent is would think that video is cool, but wouldn't really understand what was going on. They didn't have to design and build a robot to play this game in under 6 weeks, so they don't appreciate the amazing engineering behind Apex as most of us FIRSTers would. Just by watching the DARPA video you can tell it's about a robot moving in a life-like way, and any random Joe and their grandmas can see that and understand it. Also, DARPA being a government sector raises popularity amongst American civilians who are interested in what our government is doing.

tl;dr: The DARPA video is more popular than the Robonauts' unveil video because people understand it better. The minute we can get a video about FIRST that's self-explanitory and interesting, the minute we get a video shared and enjoyed by random Joe and his grandma.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

I think you just said something right there that should be highlighted. That's a completely accurate statement. What can teams do to help solve this problem. Most robot reveals follow the same formula as Team 118's video. What can we do to change that formula to make the video more universally non-FIRSTer friendly? Not to take away from the awe that "here's my awesome robot" videos tend to bring to CD and the FRC community but create something that we can use to springboard FIRST into the mass culture.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

The problem is simply the fact that FIRST is not something that the vast majority of people can relate to. It's kinda like looking at the Teen Fiction section of any bookstore nowadays: FIRST is that lonely science-fiction epic amidst the sea of vampires, sparkly vampires, vampire werewolves, vampire fairies, werewolf fallen angels wearing tutus... and zombies. Some people will pick up that lone little volume, but most of those who will are people who already enjoy the science-fiction genre.

When I think of YouTube, the first two things that come to my mind are music videos and The Annoying Orange. That basically sums up what most viewers are looking for: Popular culture and comedy. The original Annoying Orange video has 137,578,367 views... And just what is it? Some basic animation/video manipulation skills, and mindless humor. It's that simple to get people's attention.

We need to find ways to make FIRST relatable to the general population. We need to breathe some humor into it, we need to incorporate things people will recognize (like current world events, urban legends, internet memes, etc.), and we need to hype up just how epic robotics can be (yes, this means both "epic wins" AND "epic fails." Sometimes the fails are more appealing than the wins. ;) ) Then, once FIRST has a following on YouTube, teams can start getting more serious all over again.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

What we really need is to put all the fluff about its not just about the robots and this is inspiring kids to go on to do great things, and just show off robots built by high schoolers doing what robots do. (I'm not saying that the other stuff is unimportant, I'm saying that its not what is going to catch the interest of the public). Get some video of robots doing stuff that is exciting (some things that come to mind are 4334 pushing 148 across the field at 2012 IRI, 987 toppling a robot, the 254 climb in the svr finals where they mess up and are hanging by 1 arm, etc). This is our best shot at creating a viral video.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

So far I see three different way of approaching the problem from a video marketing standpoint.

1.) Get a video about FIRST that's self-explanitory and interesting

2.) Use more bits of internet/pop-culture in our content..i.e Memes, Music, Dancing, randomness...

3.) Show more "action" scenes from when the real heat of the moment stuff happens...ie. buzzer beater shots, robots toppling, nail-biting moments, breaking records like 254's sub-however many second climb...

All good approaches.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Another thing we could do is start making/promoting stuff such as: http://i.imgur.com/1nb075o.gif
and the #ThatHit gif

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Where's that GIF of that team that fell off the pyramid and someone made a reversal of it where they flew back up onto the pyramid?

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

I found some pretty cool season highlight videos from a while ago (05/06), where there was a compilation of all the best moments like incredible scoring, weird and cool robot designs, the most exciting/high scoring matches, robots falling and breaking, and other really cool stuff edited together with awesome music. Through resources like TBA and soap, we have so much awesome video (254's climb, 71 in 2001, 111 in 2004 with their neat drive, 1114 in 2008 with their awesome accuracy/consistency, 469 in 2010, and the best FIRST Robotics video of all time 190's epic move in 04 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5nnGGRi-94). These videos would make a really really cool commercial for FIRST if it was put together nicely.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

I honestly never saw that video before today. That is the greatest thing I have ever witnessed.

Besides last season in FTC when a robot accidentally deployed it's ramp in auton and a robot from the other alliance drop up onto it without falling off.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

here's a gif from wildstang 2004

possibly captioned: "when i try to do something cool"

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

See my problem with creating season/Championship highlight videos is when you have so many competitions and so many different fields it's almost impossible to catch all of the really excellent moments that happen at an FRC competition. Granted this won't stop me from trying to do so when I have the proper equipment at my disposal, but still. With a lack of HIGH DEFINITION quality video from competitions at field level....creating highlights videos is somewhat difficult.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

I have heard that Intuit is sponsoring a contest for a 30 second commercial in the Super Bowl. If FIRST was to win that, I think it would be pretty good for introducing FIRST to most of the world.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Small businesses only with less than 50 employees.
I don't know of FIRST fits in that category. I would assume it could.

http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/31/wi...mate-ad-prize/

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Youtube Geek Week is Aug 4-10. http://www.eweek.com/cloud/googles-y...eek-week-event
Could be a chance to make it loud...

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Brainiac Tuesday looks like the perfect day. Science and Education are synonymous with FIRST.

And for the record, I got 174 on the Geek IQ thing.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Well this sounds stupid, but what if we made the game like a zombie or end of the world game... like try to reach a goal before the world ends? It's something that is kind of trending now so it could be something that would help...

And I think we need a viral video or something so funny that it ends up on Tosh.0 as a web redemption

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Looking through today's Geek Week videos I really think we missed out on an opportunity here...there were tons of robot videos that were getting high view counts today.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Regarding Youtube, it seems that if videos were named "team xxx's basketball-playing robot" or "High shcooler's frisbee throwing robot" rather than "team xx 2013 reveal", they would pull in more views. Darpa's video titles are very generic, leaving the potential audience wide open. A title change alone could have made 118's video viral I think - especially if the change mentioned the fact that their robot was built by high school students.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

It is really about our country's economic future, and people should care about this! I also agree that it need to capture peoples interest and entertain them, but these are not mutually exclusive objectives.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

1. Make a cool video
2. Post to reddit
3. Vote it up :D

Also, make a cool video or take some good photos and get it featured on Wired, Gizmodo (as well as the other Gawker sites with a lot of traffic), Huffington Post, local newspapers, etc. Telling a story of triumph and providing hope for the future will get the attention of readers and be shared throughout the Internet.

Viral is about understanding what strikes people in a way that they have to share. For instance, everyone loves cat videos. In fact, it's at least 64.3% of the Internet. Everyone loves videos of cats chasing laser beams.

I propose a modest adjustment to this approach: make a video of a dog catching frisbees from an FRC robot. However, don't just make it a robot shooting frisbees, make it a robot sidekick with an action hero dog (with a cape!). Perhaps it could fight criminals offending the Order of Operations or illegal Trigonometric Identities. :] I think that's good for at least 2 million views.

In all seriousness, I think getting a quality video that tells a story in under 2 minutes is key. One thing that connects everyone on a basic primordial level is the childhood dream. Developing a video that shows how FIRST has helped students achieve their dreams will help foster a working platform to capture an audience. Perhaps connecting with some successful FIRST alumni and detailing their story will help establish an outlet for mentorship and guidance.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Or we could get a lot of celberties in a video that talk about how cool first is? wait that has already been done.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYuOKb3gO7E

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

239,011 views. Must not have worked.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

I don't think it did either, but don't discount the prime time viewers that watched the full version live.

Without getting too philosophical, I felt it sent the wrong message and didn't actively spread the word of FIRST to those outside of FIRST.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

I just said the same thing to one of my friends.

"My robot is better than your robot." Really?

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

okay i agree its not the greatest way to get it out there but it is something. If only we had a better way. WHY not break a world record. People love the world and records.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

This is a great thread! I have been thinking about the same type of thing recently. How do we tell people about FIRST not only to get more students to join teams but also to build up a following and an interest in the competition?
I agree wholeheartedly with the people who have said that it needs to be easily understandable (and generally searchable) and very cool to watch.
FIRST has made many videos that try to promote the program. The one with Morgan Freeman was very good. However I'm ALWAYS disappointed that they don't show ROBOTS! The robots are extremely powerful and amazing! A good FIRST promotional video needs to have a good voice-over and great music, but the visual portion of the video needs to be taken up solely by robots from a variety of teams doing amazing things. Everyone keeps mentioning 254's climb. That would be great! People do need to be careful when editing these videos not to make them boring. A video of 254 climbing is actually going to be boring to people who watch it without knowing exactly what's going on (I've had that happen when I show it to people). The shots of robots need to be only a couple seconds long and they need to show the robot DOING SOMETHING, not just driving around or getting knocked over.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Excellent quote from another thread that I think could help us out.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Flash mob... builds robot, then challenges to frisbee?

How about?

Borrow some ideas from ESPN.

Top 10 winning moments
Top 10 mishaps of our robots (with some humorous) punch lines.
Top 10 incredible moves (buzzer beaters,hail mary shots,trick shots) with colourful commentaries

Borrow other TV ideas

America Got Talent - robots edition
America Got Talent - fans edition
So you think you can dance?

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

I really like this idea a lot.
I'm a Drum Corps performer and fan....(for you band people that the brass/drumline only marching bands) and every year we have greatest moment videos....now obviously music and robots are two completely different things but still. Greatest fails, most awesome endgame moments, etc.

The problem I'm seeing is that we don't have access to a lot of premium footage. DCI ...again drum corps....releases a blue ray copy of the performances at the end of the season....could we get a system setup so that high quality video is saved from matches?

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

You guys were my favorite FCS this year. New favorite gif, too.

How bout this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBILeHMF_6Y

Awesomeness level = 10!!! 2200 views already. I am sure the CD community's social network can boost this to 10000 quickly. Wanna try?

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Just tossing this out there, but how hard would it be to get it on ESPN3? I would think they would be more prone to put it online on there, than they would on say ESPN. I know that TWC in Kansas City broadcasted elims this year on their MetroSports Net, which was pretty cool I thought!

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

I think this is a great idea. We don't need many videos, but a handful of quality viral videos would really help FIRST raise awareness.

In a gaming analogy. We need our Leeroy Jenkins moment

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Going back to how to make a video viral that relates to our average Joe and his grandma.. does anyone know a way we can contact Kid President? I love those videos, and they are all about "kids making a difference" and inspiring others.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

How about we spam everyone on facebook about FRC

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

I think the user is soulpancake. They probably don't get a lot of useful emails. It's worth a shot!

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

I think we need something closer to ESPN Sport Science style videos of awesome robots. People tune in to watch Kevin Love shoot a full court shot or Ray Lewis brake down a door and learn a little about the physics at the same time. If we actually showed how 254's climber used it's power take off to climb and other interesting things about robots the public could understand why these were interesting.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Now we're talking. Showcase the technology and explain how it works and why it's competitive/awesome. We might even learn something while we're at it :D

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

It will also be great for people in the community. I think a lot of problems with videos made just for the public is that people in our community (students, mentors, parents, etc.) don't watch them because they already know it. Something like this could be entertaining for everyone.

Let's not mix learning videos and viral promotional stuff together. They have conflicting attributes and it's hard to do them both in one video.

Viral stuff tends to be very short, funny, crazy and unexpected.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Maybe I'm just a grumpy old 25 year old but I hate nearly every viral video. I would much rather be popular and have people pay attention for longer than a week and a half. We're trying to change the culture over the long haul not for a minute.

How many people are still playing WOW because they saw the leeroy jenkins video? I imagine not that many.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

If we hadn't had such an issue with mobile user access on this video, we might have gotten more than 4,000 views :rolleyes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6khLRcDgv4

It did finally become the #1 search result for "robo gangman style", though. One thing I took away from helping produce this was that timing is everything. Thankfully, we were able to latch onto Gangnam Style before it became too, too unpopular and overplayed.

For this upcoming season, I'm switching back to the media group to maintain our team's momentum after one of our mentors retired from his previous position. I'd love to make videos that are a) educational b) make a difference c) fun. Our Chairman's Award production is going to be our number one priority this year, but I know we can create some additional content that will help advance FIRST and its message.

I'd love to take the ideas that have been brought up in this thread and use them as inspiration for our productions. One thing I think that will be advantageous is to develop a mini-series or collective set of videos that are not mutually exclusive. Building an audience is very important, and I feel that developing a plot line or continuity between videos will help us. One thing that may also be of benefit is to ask teams to participate in a video version of the "How I work" interview series.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

We would love it if someone took this on. We would be happy to help but video production is not one of our strengths. It's high on our list of things to work on but we definitely have a long way to go. We have a new mentor who has some experience, we're putting together a light kit and working on getting better cameras and audio equipment.

Feel free to take that idea and run with it, we would love to see videos.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

If you're strapped for cash: get quality audio first! You can take good enough web video using most smartphones or an iPad. Check out Rode's smarLav. It's $60 lav mic that uses your iOS device as a portable audio recorder. You can later sync audio in video editing software like Kdenlive (Ubuntu/linux) or Final Cut Pro or the Adobe CS/Creative Cloud apps. I have a Rode NTG-2 and it is an excellent microphone. Cheap handheld mics and Xbox headsets also work very well. If you can afford it, get a nice set of Sony or Sennheiser UHF wireless mics, as they work far better than the sub $150 VHF sets.

My lighting kit is primarily two Z96 LED lights. The $40 cheap LEDs also work apparently, but it's nice to have a constant color temperature to work with.

That being said, don't stress on the components in your kit. Get a good script and set go from there.

I'll see what I can do on my end. There might be a way to make this work, as I think it's a great series to read.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Why not make an entire show for FRC people. I know their is FRC top 25 but a show that showcases "this is how we work", Table talk (where mentors from different teams and the host give their opinions on a disscussion on the CD.), and a whats new and cool segment where you showcase and highlight what teams are up too.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

I personally thought these are the best Engineering related parodies that exist made by a music/engineering group at Purdue called West Wing.

This is Engineering
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFbWXuR_2Ow

ENGR Nights
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rZY8iX8Mdw

If media and spirit teams made stuff like this with FIRST lyrics. I'd be happy.
However, it wouldn't make much sense to non-FIRSTers if we start making refrences to super shifters and VICTORS...etc.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

I've had the idea for a couple years now, and it's my senior year on my team. I didn't think many teams would be interested but we should do it if teams are all on board at regionals and at world championships too. That would be the best!