first and everyday

[mike pawlak]

When or what will it take for first to become a house hold name?

i feel that it won't happen until dean kamen makes an interesting game that is simple to understand. he also needs to advertise it. (tv coverage would help too)

[Keith Chester]

the game this year is simpler than baseball, or basketball, or even football. it's the TV coverage and how the press butchers the way the game is played. I've seen numerous threads pointing out the horrible misunderstandings and lack of research from various reporters.
so yeah, tv coverage is neccessary. however, with 635 teams, it's going to be hard to present all of them equally (with the exception of bots that make it to finals). favorites will be picked. that would definately change the face of first. i say leave it the way it is.

[Harrison]

At the CR there was tons of media coverage...the place was crawing with TV crews, newspapers, even a couple people from radio stations.

All that has to happen is to get the word out (duh...lol). Anyone can send a letter to a pile of TV stations, newspapers, etc., just to tell them that the competition is occouring...Let them know about the scope of the competition, and they will come.

One thing my school did as well is we called up a local station and told them about the project. They came down to our school and did a story on us building the robot, and then they came to the competition and did a story on us competiting.

Now if my team can mange that, I would be scared to see what the CD's out there could do.

News people like news - FIRST makes a good story...Espcially on "Tech" channels. ie Tech-TV, Discovery...Sports channels...we all know ESPN...And then just plain old local channels.

[Keith Chester]

Yea, we have had quite a few reporters become interested in the game itself and FIRST. However, sometimes no matter how hard you explain, the article will be butchered by a misunderstanding of the reporters.