Friday Night Entertainment - will.i.am with special guests

[Libby K]

If I can step in and add my two cents for just a moment.

The concert was will.i.am and his friends stepping forward to celebrate FIRST.

At the "Mothers of Invention" panel on Friday (which included will.i.am's mother, Evelyn Kamen, and some other very smart moms), Will stood up and said the following:

Originally Posted by will.i.am

One day, I was riding around on my Segway backstage, and I was like 'WOW. I wanna call the guy who invented this and tell him how awesome he is.' So I did. Then he told me about FIRST and I said I wanted to check it out. So I came to the kickoff, and I saw all these students. Dean said to me, 'Do you think you can make FIRST cool?' and I said 'Dean, it's already cool. I'm gonna make it LOUD." So I called up ABC and I asked them for some air-time.

He went on and on about this - but what y'all should take from this is that WILL.I.AM WANTED TO DO THIS FOR FIRST. Nobody is 'pandering to celebrities' or trying to 'destroy your experience' for their own funsies.

When this show goes up on ABC, people will tune in for a Black Eyed Peas concert, that's true - and then they'll be bombarded with information on FIRST. Sure, they 'came for the show'...but they'll stay because of the passion and excitement that anyone can see as soon as they witness a FIRST Competition. That's the truly magnetic and addictive part of this program. It's why I stay, too.

If you were at the concert, I hope you remember that Will and the BEP's goodbye to the teams was a little something like this as they walked offstage...

"YOU GUYS ARE GENIUSES! THE FUTURE OF AMERICA! WE ARE SO PROUD OF YOU!"

I hope that your teams had a great time at the Championship, even if you didn't get exactly the field you wanted. I hope that when FIRST gets new teams, sponsors, and fans because of the i.am.FIRST show, you don't snub them because they took away your few extra hours on the dome floor.

I really hope that you all can appreciate why this event took so many resources and changes to happen, and that you can see the kind of potential "i.am.FIRST" has to truly infiltrate the culture we've been working on changing for 20 years.

Will.I.Am really wants the world to see FIRST. Let's give him, and FIRST, a little more credit for helping make that happen. No - the situation with the fields wasn't ideal. We all know that. But imagine what FIRST's growth can be like in the next few years with the support of big-ticket celebrities who truly 'get it' like we do.

[Conor Ryan]

Originally Posted by Libby K

If I can step in and add my two cents for just a moment.

The concert was will.i.am and his friends stepping forward to celebrate FIRST.

At the "Mothers of Invention" panel on Friday (which included will.i.am's mother, Evelyn Kamen, and some other very smart moms), Will stood up and said the following:

He went on and on about this - but what y'all should take from this is that WILL.I.AM WANTED TO DO THIS FOR FIRST. Nobody is 'pandering to celebrities' or trying to 'destroy your experience' for their own funsies.

Now that is pretty cool.



On another note, I did not attend the championship and I have heard mixed reviews from friends, and to be honest, after 8+ years of watching Chiefdelphi I really expected to see a few more negative posts about the concert here.

But the pictures that have been put up of the event speak so much more. It was a smashing success, it looked like it was executed pretty well, and it did not cause the event to come to any sort of serious grinding halt.

Interesting conclusion, FIRST might see some sort of success in developing a model that makes it more fun to be smart. Great job everyone who contributed to the event, and to Will.I.Am to finding his inner geek.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Libby K

Will.I.Am really wants the world to see FIRST. Let's give him, and FIRST, a little more credit for helping make that happen. No - the situation with the fields wasn't ideal. We all know that. But imagine what FIRST's growth can be like in the next few years with the support of big-ticket celebrities who truly 'get it' like we do.

Well said. I'm beginning to see the light, so to say...

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Well said. I'm beginning to see the light, so to say...

Now just add a dub-step bass beat to that light, and you'll be where the FIRST leadership is: behind the effort as an experiment with almost no downside and a huge upside...

[Alan Anderson]

I seem to be a grumpy voice here. I apologize for coming across like that, but...

Originally Posted by Conor Ryan

...it did not cause the event to come to any sort of serious grinding halt.

It did halt things. Qualification matches ended an hour earlier than they would have otherwise and the dome was cleared out.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I seem to be a grumpy voice here. I apologize for coming across like that, but...



It did halt things. Qualification matches ended an hour earlier than they would have otherwise and the dome was cleared out.

The matches that were not finished in the dome were finished at the pit fields.
No harm. No foul.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

The matches that were not finished in the dome were finished at the pit fields.
No harm. No foul.

...and Newton only had two to play (one regularly-scheduled and one rerun).

[Bryany]

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned already (too many posts to read through them all), but I really wish we had a little more warning about awards being given at the concert. If we had actually won the Chairman's award, it would have been terrible not to have been there. (we and a lot of other students we talked to weren't)

[Jon236]

Originally Posted by Karibou

Ryan Devlin was great, IMO. He did know sort of what was going on, and going into the crowd and doing the Twitter shout- outs made it a lot cooler.

Blair would have been soooo much better!

[Racer26]

I have a strange urge to quote Still Alive:

This was a triumph,
I'm making a note here:
HUGE SUCCESS.
---
But there's no sense crying over every mistake.
You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

I was legitimately concerned about the execution of the whole works. It seems like FIRST HQ certainly has room for improvement, but the resounding response is that this was a huge success. Not only that, but think: Dean managed to catch the attention of will.i.am, and not only did will.i.am respond positively, he went out of his way to provide HUGE support to the program. If we managed to snag the attention of will.i.am, whose attention can we snag next?

I've always been a proponent of the quality over quantity measure of new teams, but I'm starting to think that maybe, getting the message out to as many people as possible, the quality will create itself. I brought my new girlfriend to three FRC events this year (FLR, Waterloo, GTREast), initially responded to by claims of not being interested. After FLR, she was excited to go to Waterloo and GTR. This has been my experience with everyone I've ever brought to an FRC event.

[Andrew Schreiber]

My impression: Thumbs up, make some minor tweaks, do this again.

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

They told teams that no cameras were allowed tonight. That makes me think it will also not be webcast.

That was one of my complaints, were the teams that won awards allowed to bring in a camera or two to get pictures of their teams on stage?

Originally Posted by Bryany

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned already (too many posts to read through them all), but I really wish we had a little more warning about awards being given at the concert. If we had actually won the Chairman's award, it would have been terrible not to have been there. (we and a lot of other students we talked to weren't)

Yeah, my second big complaint. I almost didn't go because I was under the impression that it was just a concert rather than an awards ceremony.


My overall feeling, and this is a 180, was that it was good for FIRST. If we could put all 4 fields in the dome (or just get bigger stands in the pits) I would actually be pretty happy with this. The music was a little loud and it all made me feel old but I think it celebrated FIRST rather than BEP.

Minor complaint: I didn't know who half those celebrities were... this is my fault for being old and lame and not watching TV.

[Chris is me]

I think many of the loudness complaints could have been dealt with by distributing ear plugs. Everyone sane who goes to a normal concert wears them! Why not here?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I think many of the loudness complaints could have been dealt with by distributing ear plugs. Everyone sane who goes to a normal concert wears them! Why not here?

That said, the massage was nice on my back and feet.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

...the massage was nice on my back and feet.

I thought of that at the time, and wondered if anyone was enjoying it.

(Another piece of my curmudgeon side for your entertainment -- I discovered a few years ago that massages are very uncomfortable for me, and even make me a bit nauseous.)

[Mike Soukup]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

That was one of my complaints, were the teams that won awards allowed to bring in a camera or two to get pictures of their teams on stage?

I never heard the announcement that cameras weren't allowed. My wife brought our SLR in and took pictures all night; no one told her to stop. Before we decided to bring it, I read the back of the ticket which explicitly said that pictures & videos taken are only for non-commercial use by the ticket holder. That implied to me that picture taking was allowed.

I really enjoyed the concert. I think all of our students enjoyed it too. My only complaint is that they gave out the Chairman's award without anyone, including the eligible teams, knowing that they were giving it out. I know some members of eligible teams skipped the concert to work on strategy. Imagine the disappointment if they missed the presentation of the award to their team if they won.