How will they top WILL I AM?

[trissinata]

Originally Posted by Sconrad

Are you kidding?! "Hello Dean!" "Who are you?" "I'm God, and I want your FRC teams to build me a robot!" IMHO, FIRST Almighty would top i.am.first any day!

we named our minibot last year after Morgan Freeman. He's being there would be epic.

[Bob Steele]

I would think that a cameo by our President might top anything else.
Or perhaps the Secretary of Education (Arne Duncan)... He appears to really love FIRST (he was at our school last year driving our robot and loved it..)

I don't really understand why we need a sports or music or film star...

Mythbusters... ok ...

Dean and Woodie and Dave (and many other mentors..) are my rock stars...

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by Bob Steele

I don't really understand why we need a sports or music or film star...

The thing is - we don't.

But they help us make it loud.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

I think some of you guys are a little harsh on the minibots!

Dr. Joe made a prediction in our lab a couple weeks ago, and I am fully on board with it. He basically predicted that minibots would return, but would be REQUIRED to be smart, and not necessarily by rules, but by necessity to complete the task. The example he gave was completing a maze.

I think in an implementation like that, minibots have the potential to be a very cool and different aspect to games that we haven't seen before. It helps break up the somewhat repeatable actions of handling some sort of ball, picking up some kind of tube and placing it on a peg, hanging from a bar of some sorts, etc.

-Brando

If they don't walk out onto the stage with a minibot in hand and throw it in the garbage, I'll be fairly disappointed.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Taylor

The thing is - we don't.

But they help us make it loud.

Please, I don't need help with that. I can make it loud all on my own.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by JDBohanon234

In my humble opinion, the Mythbusters overlook many things in their examination of their problems.

I'm constantly ignoring things in my engineering studies at college. Things like friction, atmosphere, more friction, losses here and there... and if I'm not ignoring, I'm assuming certain conditions (say, flow regime or ideal conditions)!

When the Mythbusters overlook things, they usually explain why they're overlooking it. Say, they're going for ideal conditions (where engineers love to operate). They are thorough, just not in the way you want.

BTW: Grant Imahara has been involved with FIRST for a while. It might be a bit late for your concern about putting a bad face on FIRST. (And I REALLY hope your suggestion that Steve Jobs show up was not serious, for fairly obvious reasons. Now, the Woz, on the other hand...)

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

If they don't walk out onto the stage with a minibot in hand and throw it in the garbage, I'll be fairly disappointed.

I get the minibot frustration, believe me. But, does everyone really feel that there is no way a miniature robot can be a creative and effective aspect to a game? I dont know if its the optimist in me or what, but I think that idea has potential, just last years execution was about as bad as could be.

-Brando

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Taylor

To piggyback on what Jane said, I'd like to see a mixture of mainstream entertainment celebrities and science celebrities (although it could be argued that we've had that for years with Dr. Flowers, Mr. Kamen, and Mr. Lavery).

Possible crossover celebs would be Paul Sr. and Paul Jr., the Mythbusters (I know, Kari's done VEX and Grant's done FRC), Chris Hardwick, Conan O'Brien, Peyton Manning (since it's obviously a football game and he's not doing much these days anyway), Oprah Winfrey, Mike Rowe.

I think it's interesting that almost all of these people (Bill Nye and Grant Imahara being exceptions), do not have STEM degrees and were never practicing engineers or scientists. (Not to diminish their skills in any way, Adam Savage's Maltese Falcon TED Talk is quite possibly my favorite one, Jamie Hyneman's work speaks for itself, and while OCC's choppers are not my thing they are certainly impressive.)

Which leads me to an interesting question: Are there any other STEM celebrities that actually have education and have subsequently worked in their fields? There are other engineers and scientists that are celebrities to me, but I know I'm a dork so they would probably go unnoticed by most.

[Bob Steele]

Originally Posted by EricH

Now, the Woz, on the other hand...)

Woz has been involved with FIRST for quite awhile.. I haven't seem him much lately but he pretty much used to be a 'fixture' as a judge at CMP and often at other competitions...

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Bob Steele

Woz has been involved with FIRST for quite awhile.. I haven't seem him much lately but he pretty much used to be a 'fixture' as a judge at CMP and often at other competitions...

Yep, that's why I brought him up. I know he judged Arizona in 2010 (I was inspecting).

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

If they don't walk out onto the stage with a minibot in hand and throw it in the garbage, I'll be fairly disappointed.

Amen to that.

I expect to be disappointed though. I don't think FIRST understands how uneven the playing field was made by minibots. You NEEDED to do the minibot, and in order to do the minibot well, you needed to burn through motors. I seriously hope that the "next" minibot challenge does not actually use FTC parts, because FRC teams will push performance to the limit and break those again and again.

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Amen to that.

I expect to be disappointed though. I don't think FIRST understands how uneven the playing field was made by minibots. You NEEDED to do the minibot, and in order to do the minibot well, you needed to burn through motors. I seriously hope that the "next" minibot challenge does not actually use FTC parts, because FRC teams will push performance to the limit and break those again and again.

Partial disagreeance.

To develop one of the speedster minibots on your own, most likely required you to burn through motors.

However, I saw plenty of minibots with heavily borrowed designs- especially towards the end of the season- that wouldn't take many motors to develop at all. Particularly when you were essentially using the experience of another's design to avoid some of the pitfalls.

[Robert Cawthon]

Originally Posted by Bob Steele

I don't really understand why we need a sports or music or film star...

Actually, WE don't. We are already excited and involved. I think the reason behind the famous faces are to attract those who are not as excited as we are and are unlikely to investigate their local team (or push to start a team if there isn't one nearby.)

[Taylor]

I can't believe nobody's said Randall Munroe.
Can you imagine the animation?

That, as the kids say these days, would be epic.

[N7UJJ]

Jimmy Carter: President and engineer