Chief Delphi - BattleBots IQ

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- Televised Robotics (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=49)

- - BattleBots IQ (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=710)

Jason, you made many of the same points I've been holding back for the past few days. Excellent post.

Mike

I just wanted to make this absolutely clear--although I've posted this twice:
I started this thread; not a BattleBots staffperson, and definitely not Nola.
I started this thread.

I have no affiliation with BattleBots, nor any affiliation with FIRST. I have competed in both a number of times and I love them dearly.

The ONLY reason Nola of BattleBots IQ (and FIRST!) posted in this thread was to defend the accusations made against her and BattleBots--she was never selling BattleBots IQ to you the FIRST teams. She would have never posted regarding BBIQ had I not created this hoopla.

Any complaints about this thread should go to me:
dph@andrew.cmu.edu

Sorry if this seems off-topic, since it is. But there have been a lot of misunderstandings.
Dan

Quote:

[i]
Battlebots: you play pre-matches to go onto the finals.. but you are there at the compitition. everybody gets a chance. The top robots do not have to go thru this pre-game. they just go onto the finals. Maybe FIRST should look at there format.

FIRST could of done many things to solve this problem. they chose the easy way out. [/b]

Just to point out.

My team (Team #88), except for 2 years, has always done extrememly well. Our first year, and Last year were the only exception to this. Should we have skipped the Regionals, and be allowed to compete in the finals because of this. I don't think so.

Also, to further clarify, Battelbots can afford to use that format, because the game doesn't change year to year. It's the same, so you can use the same robot.

As you know FIRST is based on the fact the game will change, so it would be impossible for them to goto that format without completely changeing the nature of their game.

Quote:

Originally posted by Mike Norton
Quote:I do not know what life you have been living. But if you think your parents were unfair that is because there was something they were trying to protect you from. This is a "game" that is it. the game that you build a robot and play. The game tell you you can't win why PLAY:confused:

I'm glad to see that you totally missd the point of my post. I didn't say that my parents rules were unfair for no reason. The point behind that was at the point in time when those rules were imposed upon me I was aggrivated and felt like it was unfair, the way many people feel about the new rules for this years competition. I would also like to note that while I don not, wait let me say this again maybe it'll stick, I DO NOT fully agree with the new rules, I am not about to abandon something that kept me in school a bit longer and kept me from getting out sooner because I was fed up with the crap. I also would like to reitterate this poit I do not disagree with teams choosing to move to BBIQ did you get that this time? I'm not trying to be a pain but I think you should becareful how you react to cetatin things people say/post. I also think, as posted by someone else, that you are a bit amiss with some of your facts. I also would like to point out your exact words "This is a 'game' thats it." I agree totally. So why do you get so uptight about it? We are not pro athletes who get paid milloins of dollars, I compare BB to this, we are the olypians, who for the most part get paid very little. (Olympic athletes are not supposed to have ever earned money prior to competing in the olympics, for whatever sport they are competing in.) I'm now interested to see how you will miss constrew that. Until then...
BTW, I realize that you started this thread, Dan, but I think the reason it is still going is because you struck a nerve that has been twinging n some people.

BattleBots IQ is a threat...

We can all discuss the merits and sins of FIRST and Battlebots for years.

But, the bottom line for me is that I view BattleBots IQ as a huge threat to FIRST's ability to reach its stated goal of changing the entire culture.

FIRST has many advantages over BBIQ but the one thing that BBIQ has over FIRST is that BBIQ has a TV contract.

With a TV contract and the promotion that TV brings with it, the growth rate of BBIQ could easily make FIRST's 40% growth rate seem sluggish.

I think that FIRST should start to view BBIQ as a competitor and to COMPETE with them.

I am not asking for FIRST to sell its soul to the devil in order to get on TV, but I AM asking for FIRST to design a TV friendly game (i.e. easy to watch, easy to score, easy to explain).

I view this as the most critical year in FIRST's history. Between the economy and the damage done by last years game (yes, I said, "damage done"), FIRST needs to have the most exciting game they have ever devised.

This January we may all see the future of FIRST more clearly.

Joe J.

How can we get FIRST on TV?

Battle Bot is on TV because they can afford to pay for the TV contract... So what can FIRST do to get itself on TV?

Well, I don't think FIRST have a whole lot of money to pay any major channel to put a show on... The registration fee of teams don't even pay for all the cost of running competitions. Running 17 regional and 1 championship event is not cheat!

So, I guess the other way to do it is to convince the channels that there's an audience out there dying to watch the FIRST robotics competition. If we can get every high school across the country to have a robotics team, I bet those TV channels will see a demand for robotics shows, and decide it will be profitable for them to start producing something...

NASA have been nice enough to broadcast the competition on their channel, but how many family across the country have NASA TV in their area? If we want FIRST to be on TV, we have to show that there will be a lot of students wanting to watch the shows, and their family wanting to see their kids robot, and their family friends who heard about this wanting to see the show and decide if they want to send their kids to the robotics team in high school... etc.

How else can we get FIRST on TV? I don't think we can hope ESPN will be nice enough to give up showing Football or the x-game, or any other contract that give them millions of profit and donate part of their time for a small group of audience...

Quote:

Originally posted by Joe Johnson
I view this as the most critical year in FIRST's history. Between the economy and the damage done by last years game (yes, I said, "damage done"), FIRST needs to have the most exciting game they have ever devised.

Well said, Joe.

The FIRST teams have seen some of the changes in FIRST this year... maybe they have more in store for us. They've added staff to their "customer service" group, so maybe they've also added to their marketing effort. I hope so. With the added registrations and full Regionals, I hope that FIRST has enough cash to help promote the program.

FIRST has tried to get on TV for years, that's for sure. This subject of "marketing" FIRST really needs to be discussed somewhere else, because this is probably FIRST's biggest weakness... I go ahead and start a new thread so we can give this subject the attention it deserves.

Andy B.

BBIQ doesn't pay for TV time....

BattleBots nor BattleBots IQ pay to be broadcast on TV; on the contrary that's where they get almost all of their funding. They produce a product (the competition) and Comedy Central--maybe Fox Kids for BBIQ--pays them to film and broadcast it.

The reason BBIQ is on TV so quickly is because BattleBots has a proven television success. The first BattleBots was webcast by ZDtv, the second was pay-per-view, the following seasons were broadcast on tv and the most recent season had it's show length doubled to a full hour.

I'm with Joe and I really hope that this year Dean and Woodie create an exciting tv-worthy show. They will have to compromise some facet of their goals; but these guys are brilliant engineers and very familiar with trade-offs.

Dan