Re: Documentary FIRST Robotics 2008
 

Seeing as how I work for a PBS station, I'm really excited about seeing the documentary. I've tried talking my station into doing a local doc about the area teams (NEPA), but I guess it won't happen this year. Perhaps they may hop on the bandwagon and do one next year.

Re: Congrats to the five teams
 

I have been away for the last few days and i am really suprised about the reaction from my statment:confused: . So i would like to clear things up. People are assuming that I did not like the choices pbs picked. This is not true in fact i think 341 is one of the best chairman canidates out there. The only thing i truely care about with the pbs documentary is it brings first to the next level of getting more high schools involved.

Re: Congrats to the five teams
 

And they can surely do that with the teams that were picked.

I love the variety of great teams and would like to congratulate all the teams who were chosen. Good job and I cannot wait to see how this documentary turns out!

Re: Congrats to the five teams
 

Congrats to all the teams! I'm sure you'll do the FIRSt community proud and I can't wait to see the final product!

This will be a nice add to my collection of FIRST videos!

Re: Documentary FIRST Robotics 2008
 

Congrats to all of the chosen teams!!! You guys will do us all proud!!

A special congratulations to Team 488!!! We love you guys!!!
We will never forget you coming to the airport at midnight to cheer us home after we won at Las Vegas last year!!!

They could not have picked a better team to represent FIRST and the Pacific North West!!!

Let us know if there is anything we can do to help out in any way!!!
We are looking forward to seeing the video...

See you guys at Portland and Seattle and the championships!!!

Great JOB!!!

Re: Documentary FIRST Robotics 2008
 

On behalf of MOE 365, congratulations to all teams selected for what is sure to be an interesting and revealing look at some FIRST teams behind the curtain.

We all look forward to all selected teams spreading the word through their video diaries this season.

Best of luck!

Re: Documentary FIRST Robotics 2008
 

Hello All,

I hope everyone had a great season !!!!.

Here is a blog entry on the PBS documentary:
http://smartpei.typepad.com/robert_p...and-first.html

PBS - KETC Photos:
http://www.ketc.org/PhotoGallery/PG_...botics08_1.asp

Re: Documentary FIRST Robotics 2008
 

will that only be on a local PBS or is it widespread? It should be interesting. We need a Hows it made about a FIRST robotics field or something cool like that.

Re: Documentary FIRST Robotics 2008
 

Hello zachjo,

It will be a national documentary which follows the story of 5 teams.

From Robert Paterson's Weblog, March 4, 2008 entry :

"In addition to the Wentzville team, the documentary will profile an all-girls team from Baltimore ; a team from Idaho headed by a young man with Muscular Dystrophy; a team from a youth corrections facility in Colorado ; and a first generation Chinese student on a team from Seattle who must battle his non-English-speaking parents to let him participate."

Cheers,
Marcos :)
Member of ASEE
www.asee.org

Re: Documentary FIRST Robotics 2008
 

the funny thing is that the PBS has interviewed the college mentor/president of my team, a fellow high schooler, our whole team , and myself.

Re: Documentary FIRST Robotics 2008
 

Hmm... will this air in HD? :D

Re: Documentary FIRST Robotics 2008
 

The teams that are featured in the documentary, to the best of my knowledge, are listed below.

Team 341 "Miss Daisy"
Team 488 "Team XBot"
Team 1583 "Rambotix"
1706 "Mango Fandango"
Team 2528 "Tough Ladies"

We only had direct contact with Team 2528 and they are an awesome example of a Rookie team!

The timing for release should be late fall 2008 or early next year. There is also no guarantee from the producers which teams or in which proportion they will be featured. That will be determined later by the editors. Hopefully they will show all of these teams. It is certainly a diverse group that will represent FIRST well.

I was quiet until now because I did not want the documentary process to interfere with our season. Now that the Championship is over, I can say that they followed us from team meetings in late December through to the Championship Event.

Most importantly, off-camera, we spent a lot of time educating the directors, producers, and camera crews about the meaning of FIRST. Whenever we were at an event and saw a team doing something really cool, we would walk them over and say "Look at this! This is what FIRST is all about!" I think they were absolutely "floored" by what happens at a regional competition. Hopefully this will translate into the finished product.
Overall it has been a positive experience for us and we hope that the film will show FIRST for the incredible and life changing experience that it truly is.

Re: Documentary FIRST Robotics 2008
 

Not sure what exactly is going on with this PBS Documentary but they may have a central story line on the teams that OZ_341 mentioned but seems like the will do something additional on other teams.
When we were uncrating our robot there was a camera crew from this documentary right there trying to get every angle. Then they asked one of our student mentors to do an Interview late Thursday and 12 of our team members did a 45 minute (Question & Answer) session with them late Friday. They had a student say an introduction ("We are Team 171 Extreme Engineering from Platteville, Wisconsin") three or four different times. Then answered a bunch of questions and finally did a closing team chant.

Asking questions about this Documentary and filming we found out that the crew that was at Championship was a private contractor hired just for filming. They didn't know too much information about the specifics time dates. Information I gathered is that they are doing a main story on FIRST Robotics then some smaller sections about individual teams. Release date set for Late Fall.

Re: Documentary FIRST Robotics 2008
 

Hello All,

One of the team they have followed is Team 341 (aka Miss Daisy). There is a nice article online on the team on Montgomery Newspapers titled : "WHS robotics team takes home regional honors ". It talks in some detail about the production process.

The article mentions the students used a Sony HD Camera to help them share their experience with the audience.

Their team website is :
http://www.team341.com/daisyV.html

:D

Cheers,
Marcos.
Member of MSTA
www.msta.org

Re: Documentary FIRST Robotics 2008
 

Minor edit: Team 2528 changed their name to the "RoboDoves" (a name that really is fitting) but it didn't get updated in the programs. The team received a judges award at the Chesapeake Regional, but did not qualify for the Championship so their "PBS story" ended there.
But their team story is just beginning, as they had an inspirational rookie year.
And I agree, they are awesome!
A big thanks to Story House Productions, and their local crew out of Washington DC who followed this team. The crew was terrific, polite and got up to speed on what FIRST is pretty quickly. We are hoping the story of 2528 makes the final cut, along with all the great teams listed above.