FIRST Featured on CNN.com

[Ryan Curry]

CNN.com is featuring an article on Nationals on their main page right now, here.

-Ryan Curry

[GregT]

Originally Posted by Ryan Curry

CNN.com is featuring an article on Nationals on their main page right now, here.

-Ryan Curry

It's a bit disappointing that they only cover the FLL competition.

[team222badbrad]

Yeah really.

Good subject

Bad article on what should have covered the "whole" event.

I guess you can either blame the un-informed writer or the persons relaying information to the writer.

Brad
Missing out on Atlanta

[KenWittlief]

it sounds like they didnt stick around to get the story right:

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Organizers say this weekend's FIRST LEGO League World Festival might help save the planet, but for the thousands of kids putting their robots up against those of their peers, this is just plain fun.

Atlanta's Georgia Dome is awash in hundreds of colorful team banners for the three-day event.

thousands of kids from around the world for FLL? really?

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

thousands of kids from around the world for FLL? really?

Absolutely. There are about 12 countries represented by FLL, far more then FRC. There also are thousands of kids.

[Hokie4Life]

The competition drew 75 teams from 20 countries on five continents. About 48,000 kids took part in 68 tournaments around the world to qualify for this world championship.

This is much bigger than FIRST robotics.

[Jim Kosaski]

It is a shame that CNN didn't do an article on the whole event. Do they not realize that First is involved with more than just Lego's. Maybe they should be told about the actual First Competition. Everyone should maybe send an email to remind them. First has recently evolved into Legos. But they started out as large robotics.

[dradius]

indeed. its too bad. FLL was an outreach program designed to foster an interest and then lead kids into FRC--the big kahuna. the community participation and aid, the new interest in technology, better places to go and more intelligent things to do for teenagers, helping the engineering workplace in dire need of new and fresh minds--these are what makes FRC stand out.

CNN shot themselves in the foot; they dont even know it either.

[Billfred]

I'll handle the other viewpoint, from two angles.

First, it's FLL. The FIRST LEGO League. Most of the FIRST-related groups on this planet have enough of a time trying to get a mention of their efforts in the local newspaper. Here we've got CNN, James Earl Jones identification and all, promoting a FIRST event. Sure, it's a subset of a larger event, one that we almost all participated in other parts of, but we've still got national worldwide coverage.

Secondly, consider this year's FLL challenge, one based around people with disabilities. Could it be that the world gets more warm fuzzies from seeing elementary and middle school kids learning about this than hearing of high schoolers gaining exposure to the field of engineering? For better or for worse, some degree of what makes it into the news is what the public wants to hear. If folks want to hear about them kids with them thar robots, they'll hear about them.