"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which." Animal Farm by George Orwell

The public can always be deceived, such is the nature of secrets and it can work both ways. Perhaps lowering robotics down to the public and slowly bringing them up towards the light does more good than trying to make them follow you blindly to the light which they cannot see.



Also from Animal Farm, ""Part of the reason for the ugliness of adults, in a child's eyes, is that the child is usually looking upwards, and few faces are at their best when seen from below." The public needs to see another side of BB, I agree, but perhaps to do this they need to grow intellectually first and get accustomed to robotics.

And just remember..."...Two and two are four. Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane."

Errrr...... I think I get this. Battlebots is a gateway into first. Well at least that's the way it worked for me.
1. Watch battlebots
2. Researched battlebots
3. Went onto battlebots forum
4. Realized that there has to be an alternative to battlebots
5. Found out about Beam robots but realized I haven't the foggiest idea what I'm doing
7. Found out about Robotics club at school
8. Joined it and discovered first:)
Of course thats not going to work for everyone because I was a geek and actually found any type of robotics interesting.
Personally I think Comedy Central turned it into pig with massive genetic research. There is plenty of sportmanship in the competition. There has been huge debates about what the rules of sportsmanship within the compeition. I believe that shows sportsmanship I think. Helping your opponent back up again.
Hehehe. Read Build Your Own Combat Robot and see how much information there is in that book that is just general information about robotics.

I would Love To see TECHTV take on the show, or any robot show besides Technogames. I WISH there was FIRST tv show, I REALLY REALLY DO!

Yeah I agree but the problem is ratings and I'd seriously doubt First would succeed when two of the three competitions have been quasi-flops in them.

This isn't a debate, we are obviously (like most of the public) totally aware of the PRO's of the competition. All we understand is that there is no aim for battle bots other than to build an awesome mechine than tear it apart on national television.
All we are saying is that it demines our efforts in FIRST to INSPIRE and spread the word to the public about technology and it's promises for the future.
I'm sure that if my goal in my technological pursuits was for definite selfish outcomes, i would love battlebots as well!

Uhhhh I just kinda said that that isn't the only aim of bbots at all. And it looks to me like we're debating, since we are expressing alternate viewpoints and then arguing about them, which to me is the definition of a debate. but anywhoo, that doesn't matter.

HOW? both competitions do the same thing! Heck, battlebots has even started this Battlebots IQ thing for high schools which is the exact same thing as FIRST but with a more interesting and less complicated competition! and even if you don't agree with the above (please explain why), I've got another argument:

The vast majority of people who would be into FIRST are people who want to challenge themselves and learn about robotics/technology and careers in those areas. People who don't want to enter for this reason wouldn't learn nearly as much about FIRST's message or robotics (as my team saw in it's first year). Battle bots attract mainly people who like to watch things get destroyed and scream about it and people who are genuinely interested in learning about.... robotics and technology! I've never seen or heard of Battle Bots turning the latter type off from robotics or preventing people from entering FIRST(as wysiswyg said it can even provide publicity) and as the former type would never be interested in FIRST or understand in it's message in the first(tee hee) place before a major societal change takes place, there's no way we could be turning them away from it or it's message.

You probably have some ARGUMENT which I have overlooked. Please explain it to me in such a way that even someone as idiotic and stubborn as I am would be swayed against my earlier statements. And while you're at it, please respond to the argument that CC was a pig costume and Battlebots is really great after all.

I never said that BB was the pig did I? NOPE! My inital comparison was easy. You can coversomething up however you want it. This can be both good and bad.

It dosn't really matter if BB teaches better than FIRST, because those out there not interested in building one ARN'T going to notice. The seasoned vets and FIRST know theres more to it. Blame it on CC, blame it on BB. I don't care. It's the fact that BB is teaching the massses in one way or another that robotics can only be violent to be entertaining. Sponsors see it. Kids see it. Principals see it. It HURTS both FIRST and BBIQ.

Well, its hard for the public to embrace something that doesn't have the "destroy the other team" mentality b/c its all were ever exposed to in sports and in basically all other forms of competitive entertainment. Take two extremes: The WWF and FIRST Robotics. In one, the objective is to totally and without sympathy destroy the other "team" and boost your own ego. In FIRST, the objective is to have gracious professionalism and the like. I would place battlebots in between these two, but nearer to the FIRST side of things. I think that the BBots program is good because it can appeal to people and allow students to learn some extremely valuable skills. Its kind of...bridging the gap. I'm definitely not saying that its better than FIRST, though!


*sigh*...if only FIRST could overtake athletics in popularity....THAT would rock...

Maybe the pupose of FIRST is to prove them wrong....

actually BBIQ is violent... so thinking that entertainment=violence isn't such a bad thing for BBIQ. But that's a 'tangent' type of a going off on. Anywhoo, yes, the general public is generally piggish in general. I think that once we can get people to understand that EDUCATION is the main reason for people to enter these competitions we can clear up the whole 'violence' thing pretty easily. The public has to understand that it's the journey of building and not the final result. I feel continuing Bbots on a network that understands and supports this is the best way to do this. Once john doe understands that hearing a little 'crunch' noise is not the only reason people do this (and how much work 'this' entails) he'll accept robotics competitions as real sports and enjoy them in non destruction derby formats like sumo, soccer, techno games, and FIRST.

Saying that FIRST is completely non-violent is somewhat misleading, if you ask me. Sure, no robots are going to have spinning woks of doom, but that doesn't mean FIRST robots are completely peaceful. In fact, this year the key to winning (at least in the finals) was to push around the other bots as much as you could. How is it peaceful to have two 130 lbs machines slamming into each other at full speed just to grab a piece of plywood and PVC?

Also, no matter how much we talk about "gracious professionalism," the truth is many teams out there don't care about it and only want to win. One of the teams we were in a practice round with actually got disabled by the judges for senselessly beating on us in a practice round!

And let's not forget the what you see of BB on TV is not the same as what goes on in the pits. From everything I've heard, there is as much sharing of tools, technical expertise, and parts in BB as there is in FIRST. It's kind of like a football game--on the field, the players try to tear each other limb-from-limb, but after its over, they're just normal people.

Besides, if BB can inspire people to build a robot, even if it is robot of destruction, thus Inpiring them about Science and Technology, isn't that enough? FIRST desperately needs to loose its superiority complex, or the people of BB will start hating us for the same reasons "we" hate them: simply because they are different.

Yea, something I haven't made clear is that my main problem with FIRST's attitude about BB is that one of their main recruitment and advertising lines is "We're SO MUCH BETTER than BB! Listen to this list of false information about why we're infinity times greater! This is how we brainwash new members to hate BB too!" FIRST needs to listen to it's own "gracious professionalism" emphasis and accept that both competitions are wonderful, inspiring things that are essentially working to the same end. And while i'm at it...

- dabruteforceguy

Wow, did you just say that I, all battlebots contestants, anyone who enjoys/supports what battlebots does, and Battlebots itself are all more selfish than you, or am I interpreting this incorrectly? You who (i think it was you) said you were going to build a miniature battlebot to compete against other miniature battlebots in a miniature arena and asked for help? What is your justification in saying this?

Listen, i don't need to quarrel about something that i explicitly expressed my veiws on in my first post. I don't like all the negitive stuff that goes omn between us FIRST people and our comrads the BB people. Like i said, the efforts of FIRST are focused oN INSPIRATION AND RECOGNITION OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY. If the starters of FIRST wanted to make money (like that of BB) than it would be a multimillion dollar ENTERTAINMENT industry and probably would turn out to be a competition like BB.

oh and btw, i have no idea what u are talking about with the miniature things. U must be thinking of someone else.

All I have to say is ouch you guys have no idea what your talking about. Battlebots was never really making money before it went on tv. It went onto tv to actually help make money because anything that doesn't make real profits will die out. And I quote the letter: . First has sponsers right???? Well the closest thing Battlebots can get to a sponsers is a tv station.

So you're saying that organizations that make money cant be interested in inspiring people? Can DEKA be interested in helping those in need with technology and still make money? Can a teacher accept money for their efforts and yet still inspire their students? Can I quote another Bbots press statement?

Wow! Battlebots is sounding just like FIRST! In fact, it always has! As I said, CC did blur the issue somewhat. Did you know that Trey Roski (co-founder, CEO) was a robot wars participant and started battlebots up when RW got entangled in evil, only-for-profit coorporate lawsuits? Do you know that he actually has human emotions? Why would he have participated in the crummy old Robot Wars if he was an evil jerk? Have you watched the pay per view show that battlebots did once before CC came along? (available on tape - http://battlebots.com/store/product_...asp?PID=BB-023 ) Do you know how much they focused on learning and making role models out of builders? a heck of a lot more than CC does and almost as much as FIRST does (they took time out to show fights - otherwise they did just as much as FIRST does). Battlebots was pretty much forced to go with CC to get funding for their competition. Now they are no longer with CC.

Well anyways, since you don't need to quarrel about this (sounds a lot like a copout! sure you don't need to, but you've been doing it, so I guess you WANT to) I'll stop posting here. When/if Bbots gets a new show on a better network we'll probably be able to tell who's right.


(and yeah, i checked, it was someone else, sorry. Silly me)http://battlebots.com/store/product_...asp?PID=BB-023