"i.am.FIRST -- Science is Rock and Roll" airs August 14th

[Wildcat]

someone please tell me i wasnt the only one to temporarily change the channel while that justin beibur commercial was on

[Karibou]

I've been watching my Twitter feed fill up with tweets about this! So awesome. I'm surprised that #omgrobots isn't trending yet.


But, the coolest tweet I've seen so far was:

"Science is rock and roll"

Tweeted by one of my school's former cheerleaders. I don't know her very well, she doesn't do robotics, she was really just another face in the hallway. I can't explain how much it meant to see someone from my own community, from that kind of demographic, being affected by the special in the way that it was intended. Way. Cool.

[Joe G.]

Overall, I thought it was very good. A bit much of the concert for my tastes, but then, die-hard FIRSTers aren't exactly the intended audience. This special will get people talking, and it'll get them curious. It'll get a lot of people into teams that might not have joined or formed them otherwise. And from there, it's our job to corrupt them all

My only real complaint was that we never saw any single shot of match play that lasted more than about 10 seconds. The emphasis wasn't really placed on the sport itself, and the excitement of the game. Showing people who have never seen an FRC match in their lives the excitement of an Einstein level match would have been good.

Still, I see this providing a big boost to FIRST next year! Thank you Will.i.am and all your guests, and we hope to see you next year!

[TPNigl]

This is such an awesome special, I'm so happy will.i.am has been such a big promoter. It's great seeing so many teams that I know are on TV. It just makes me so happy to finally see it greatly appreciated on such a wide scale.

This is actually after having seen someone walking down the street with one of our team's shirts who I didn't know, which made me happy to know we were promoted and how a man at our work knew about our team and thought we were underappreciated and always talked about us.

I am so happy that this program happened to me and that I was blessed for 4 years with such great people and so many memories.

[Eagleeyedan]

I was al ittle dissapointed that it showed so much of the concert instead of actually following the teams. Still great that FIRST got some more publicity.

[thefro526]

I'm disappointed that this program was found to be 'unwatchable' by some of my closest friends from varying demographics.

I hope the next time Will.I.Am and FIRST partner it's less about Music and more about Robots.

[stundt1]

Originally Posted by thefro526

I'm disappointed that this program was found to be 'unwatchable' by some of my closest friends from varying demographics.

I hope the next time Will.I.Am and FIRST partner it's less about Music and more about Robots.

There was way to much music in it.
Did anyone else feel like it was way too short they didnt mention fll at all either.

[Kusha]

WAY too much music in it, I wish it was more robotics based than music. But then again, like others said I'm a FIRST junkie, this wasn't intended for me.

[ebarker]

I thought it was just great....

[GCentola]

I loved it. Im glad that FIRST is finally getting more of the recognition it deserves. I think the show was a great way to spread the message, and that we should all be happy that FIRST got an hour long commercial endorsed by media celebrities (even if not all of them completely understand).

[Koko Ed]

For what it was intended for it did a great job.For those who are complaining about the music and the celebs do realize they are intended to lure the public in. Once in the special was more about Who We are and WHAT we do. They only had less that an hour to do it and for what they had to work with they did a bang up job. My biggest complaint in what's up with the West Coast bias? They couldn't find one East Cost team to talk to?

[Robyn Needel]

I want to thank will.i.am for delivering on his promise to make FIRST Loud! He obviously put out money and effort and hopefully it will make it easier and more fun for all of us in the FIRST community to get more people involved.

I think that the program was very good for publicity, and surprisingly well 'tuned' to the spirit of FIRST.

I didn't like the music at all, really, but that's probably my musical taste. I was also questioning the 'rock and roll.' I'd personally ship the Black Eyed Peas in with the Autotune-pop-with-vague-techno-elements (like Autotune) genre.

The artist "spots" were actually not bad, some of them 'got' FIRST pretty well. Whoever described some part of engineering as 'goop' made me crack up. (was that Bono?)

From a publicity standpoint, i.am.FIRST was pure gold, but from an artistic standpoint, I thought it kinda sucked. However, publicity is the quality we need, so, good job ABC.

[Barry Bonzack]

If you have a single negative thought towards this special it is because you are not the target audience for it. FIRST is Awesome, if you are posting on ChiefDelphi.com, that means you already know this. The goal is to reach out to people who think completely differently, even backwards from us, and show them why FIRST matters.

If Will uses the word "dope", doesn't wear a larger FIRST logo, takes up half of the St. Louis arena, if there was not enough seating in the pits, if the music was killed during finals, it was all justified tonight. We received a huge gift this evening, and all things considered, sacrificed very little for one year.

My brother watched the special with me, and afterward he put it like this. "If two kids from every school who would otherwise have been uninterested in technology watched this special tonight and was inspired to learn more, then the world just changed because of it."

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by Barry Bonzack

If you have a single negative thought towards this special it is because you are not the target audience for it.

I understand what your saying, but if if the biggest reason I'm involved in FIRST (the competition, strategy, sports-like atmosphere) isn't really highlighted at all, I think they may have missed getting people like me interested in FIRST. Dean has been saying for years that they stole the spots model to get people hooked on FIRST. I don't think this special properly utilized or highlighted that advantage or aspect of the FIRST program. It was a great special, but I think it could have been more effective at getting people interesed if they spent some time on the actual competition by showing some match footage.

Again, the special was great and is likely a huge sucess, but I think they have things they could do better next year.