RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

Bryce (Rez648) and I are developing a website that provides insight into the "less seen" part of FIRST and robotics in general. I am attempting to form a questionnaire page. But I need your help. If anyone wants to be spotlighted on the page... then pm me or e-mail me (Aggresive05@aol.com)... I will then send you the questionnaire. Then... Bryce will add these (kind of) personal insights into the lives of FIRST students, mentors, engineers, and teachers.


Some examples of the questions:
1. How you got started...
2. What team you are on or involved with...
3. Where you are from...
4. What your role is...


Thanks and hurry... the website should be up within two weeks or so at....
www.freewebs.com/theroboticsunderground.

Ya it is kinda long....

Re: RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

We are also looking for people who would be willing to help with this new website! If you are interested, contact either me or Budda648 through PM or email.

Budda648: Aggresive05@aol.com
Rez648: hemihead_1@hotmail.com

Thank you

Re: RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

Could you elaborate. Which "less seen" part are you talking about? I get the impression that the page will consist of personal stories from individuals. This sounds like a good idea, -- but is it a correct impression of your aim? I'm not quite sure I see what you want to do with Robotics Underground.

Re: RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

This section of the website has "personal insight" or stories behind their involvement with FIRST. We hope to broaden our range from beyond FIRST and into more proffessional robotics. Right now I just want specific questions answered but later on I could take on more things such as stories.

We will also try to cover the more "lesser known aspects" of FIRST. Such as what it takes to produce such a spectacle. And we will post any new information.

I should have been a little more elaborate. Sorry.

Re: RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

sounds way cool-- if ya wanna send me the question thingy i'll gladly do it for ya -- teddybear34990@yahoo.com-- can't fill it out tomorrow but friday i can--

-tiff

Re: RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

http://roboticsunderground.cjb.net :] :]

Re: RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

Good idea, but this sounds an awful lot like the UFH award.

Re: RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

Karthik i think the personal part is just about like a questionnaire right now, what they want to do (if i understand it correctly) with the lesser seen parts of first is like some of the team parts that not everyone knows about. I know that when i try to talk to people about FIRST they dont comprehend that we do more then build a bot. We have everything from PR to small bussiness corporations to event managment to the animations.

(Hope thats right)

Re: RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

I think we're all fully aware.
But what is this about? What are you trying to show the public?

The FIRST website has more than enough information on this subject and others, and FIRST is a 501c3 organization, which (I believe) means that most of their organizational aspects are available for public view. Who are you targeting with this? Where are you planning on going?

Re: RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

if its using HTML then ill help out with the site building and what not... =D

Re: RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

Ok... obviously there is a lot of confusion. This has nothing to do with the UFH award. Dez250 was mostly correct... what I mean by that is that the site will provide insight into the experience of FIRST... and hopefully a robotics in general. The site will be to promote engineering and robotics. I dont think that the FIRST website has enough about the "behind the scenes" part of FIRST... a part in which you all know is the most thrilling and exciting part of it all... building robots, meeting new friends, having fun, and most of all, promoting and using gracious proffessionalism. I think we would like to end up generalizing in robotics... the proffessions, FIRST, ect. We are just trying to get more students to broaden their horizons and experience robotics the way that we have.


BTW... yes, heretic, it is going to be html based, I hope. We will be using Adobe GoLive.

Re: RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

Isn't this info the same info you can get on a teams website or from somebody's CD user profle? I'm kinda on the same side as some of the others opines' on this. Who is your target audience and what are you trying to accomplish? I saw what was posted about how this won't try to take away from UFH, but I'm not sure about that. Amanda Morrison and the UFH committee really have a good thing going with UFH and I don't want to see something trying to take away from them. In my conversations with some of the folks up in FIRST HQ, they really like what UFH does.


Anyways...maybe we should just wait and see what ya'll come up with. :]

Re: RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

Ok. Let me give this one last shot at clearing this up. We are not trying to base this off of the UFH award. We are trying to get everyone's opinion. Not the just the best, most dedicated people. Besides this is not the only thing that will be on the site. Nor are we trying to replicate the questions asked by the UFH committee. Besides I want to try and get the students perspective more than the engineers/teachers. Considering we are trying to get more students involved.

I dont know... I may have just confused more people... just wait and see.

Re: RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

Our intention was never to take away from the UHF award. We apologize if it looks like that, but it is not the intention of Me, Budda, or our site. We only want people's opinions.

Re: RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

Currently, I don't think there are enough stories of FIRST participants out in the open. FIRST has some, but they are mostly one liners, or at most a couple of sentences. Most team websites are sorely lacking anything like this. UFH has some, but not a lot. FIRST Historians died from lack of interest. I think, from what I am reading, the closest thing currently is the Best (and Funniest) thing that happened to you in FIRST threads.

I think we should be working to encourage more stories, not discourage.


My advice for the best way to get people interested is to get it started with your stories. Once people see an example, it's much easier to do their own.

Re: RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

I don't get the impression that you are doing what UFH is doing. If anything, I feel that it's very different because you are collecting information on just any average FIRST participants, and as you said, other people in robotics in general.

To me it kind of sounds like a discovery channel show studying people who are into robotics in general. Sort of like showing the rest of the world the normal habit and behavior of robotics people. Which could be quite interesting if you ask me. However, you face a problem many survey face, your pool of "average FIRSTer" can be quite large. If you collect too little information, your view could potentially be too narrow. If you collect too many data, it will take too much work and people will never get to read through all of them.

However, if your study results are showed through some sort of statistics, with specific cases that represent certain kind of people, it may be more interesting to read.

If you feel like this is the best thing your time can be spent on, go for it. Just becareful about what you really want to accomplish, and how you accomplish it.

Re: RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

Thank you Joe and Ken... you may have done a better job at clearing this up then I could have.

Re: RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

I understand what you're trying to do completely. But.... I don't think underground is the most appropriate name for this movement.

When I think underground, I think of things that are happening as a result of the hard work and craziness of competing and being on a team.

For example, on my team, an underground movement that happened is the formation of the G.U.N.N. Show. It really has nothing to do with FIRST but had it's roots planted in the FIRST atmosphere.
Another undergroound movement that happened on the team was the formation of a band by some students that started off as a bunch of friends getting together to play for a Robot Team fundraiser, but has grown out of that exclusive fundraising movement and moved to become a full fleged band who plays everywhere in the state practically now-a-days.

Anyways, if you are going to be gathering stories that dfirectly deal with a student's experience within FIRST I don't think it should be called an underground movement by any means. Maybe "the untold stories", or "in depth" is more like it.

edit: I even had an idea of calling it "behind the scenes", but I think that could be used more to desribe the actual game design process all the way to how FIRST goes about setting up and pulling off this many regionals and the Nationals. - That is truely behind the scenes action.

Re: RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

I think your best bet would not only be to interview random FIRSTers, but to scour team websites for your information. I agree with Elgin - 'underground' doesn't seem like the appropriate terminology. However, setting up this website could be very inspiring and a great asset to rookie FIRSTers.

Re: RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

Myself and Budda648 (the current staff of the new site) have taken into consideration Elgin and Amanda's information and are changing the name to....

FIRSTinsider

We would like to thank all of those that have responded to our questionaire and have given comments and advice. Without you, our site would never get off the ground. Again, thank you.

Re: RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

Nice name..
I like it!
Reminds me of a tv informational show.
i like a lot ^___^;
--d0ri

Re: RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

Thanks... it was Bryce's idea. :D

Re: RoboticsUnderground Needs Your Help...
 

sweet. i like it.
let us know when the site's up.
if you need anything else, pleeease let me know.
don't hesitate at all :)
--d0ri