Still Looking for Top Engineer Contestants

[ewhitman]

I heard about this show on CD, applied, and after several rounds of cuts, eventually made it onto the show. I had a blast during most of 2 months of filming last winter, and the show is premiering tonight under the new name The Big Brain Theory: Pure Genius at 10|9c on Discovery.

It's all about building things with limited money and Very Limited time, which is something that FIRST helped prepare me for (and should feel a bit familiar to other FIRST'ers).

Here's 2 promotional videos:
http://youtu.be/-bRbWM7B1qg
http://youtu.be/agvbKAiYwN4

[OZ_341]

Cool.
Are you on tonight's episode?

[ewhitman]

Yes. All 10 contestants are in all 8 episodes. Actually, when eliminated from contention for the grand prize, contestants are not sent home. This way we can have teams of 5 for each challenge. It would have been kind of anticlimactic if we got to the end and the last two people had to work by themselves.

[Maldridge422]

Originally Posted by ewhitman

It's all about building things with limited money and Very Limited time, which is something that FIRST helped prepare me for (and should feel a bit familiar to other FIRST'ers).

I know an alumni from my team is also a contestant on the show. Are many of the other eight contestants involved with FIRST? I think this may be the sort of #MakeItLoud event that we're looking for in the culture.

[IKE]

I watched the show last night. Overall, pretty good. I think it would have been beneficial to have given the team a little extra time. It reminded me a lot of "Junkyard Wars" meets Top XXX (shot, chef, model...) minus the junkyard. I was a big fan of Junkyard Wars, and my hope is that this fills the gap that was left when that show went off the air.

********************
What are folks thoughts of having discussions about teh specifics and engineering of the shows. I would love to "arm-chair" quarterback last nights episode. Whould we start a seperate thread in Chit-Chat? Keep it in this thread, or should we kick it over to some sort of Big Brain Theory forum?

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Maldridge422

Are many of the other eight contestants involved with FIRST?

Yes, at least two others are. Gui Cavalcanti and Amy McDow Elliot are both FIRST alums. Amy is also an alum of the NASA Robotics Academy.

-dave



.

[Hallry]

Originally Posted by dlavery

Yes, at least two others are. Gui Cavalcanti and Amy McDow Elliot are both FIRST alums. Amy is also an alum of the NASA Robotics Academy.

-dave

The 'NASA Mohawk Dude' is a guest judge on tonight's episode (Seek and Destroy), who I believe Dave said was involved with FIRST during his speech at Championships this year. That means that at least 4 of the people on the show tonight are or have been involved with FIRST

[frasnow]

Originally Posted by ewhitman

http://youtu.be/-bRbWM7B1qg

Wow, I'm really disappointed in this promotional video. All the explosions look cool, but the drama and massive amount of swearing make the show look really lame. Why can't it be about engineering? There are way too many reality shows about people who solve problems in a childish manner. If somebody acted like that at my work they'd be fired. Unless the show is different from this promotion, I wouldn't recommend it to our best and brightest. They are better than this.