Fun Wild Idea: Corporate Sponsors Build & Compete!

[Doc Wu]

How about including a celebrity team? I'd like to see what Will-i-am and the Black Eyed Peas come up with. Or a team from Mythbusters...

[mrnoble]

I don't want our primary sources of mentors to focus on corporate promotion to the detriment of helping students, so I don't like the idea. The resources have to be taken from somewhere, and it would probably come out of time spent with students. That said, getting it into the hands of the Discovery channel might be a great idea.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by mrnoble

I don't want our primary sources of mentors to focus on corporate promotion to the detriment of helping students, so I don't like the idea. The resources have to be taken from somewhere, and it would probably come out of time spent with students. That said, getting it into the hands of the Discovery channel might be a great idea.

I would hope that limiting it to just a half dozen firms, and then small build teams, wouldn't divert resources, and the publicity would more than offset the loss of resources in the near term.

[themccannman]

Originally Posted by mrnoble

I don't want our primary sources of mentors to focus on corporate promotion to the detriment of helping students, so I don't like the idea. The resources have to be taken from somewhere, and it would probably come out of time spent with students. That said, getting it into the hands of the Discovery channel might be a great idea.

You seem to think that every engineer that a company (GM, lockheed, boeing) would put on their design team would be someone who's already mentoring a FIRST team. That's certainly not the case. All of these companies have plenty of employees to spare to put on a team for a month to design a robot, no teams is going to lose any mentors to the "pro teams".

Just an aside, but discovery channel associates have gone the way of TLC, they hardly do any educational programming anymore (let alone anything worth watching). Celebrity casts would be a disaster too, unless those celebrities happened to be trained engineers/programmers. I guarantee you the cast of big bang theory could not build a robot.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by themccannman

. I guarantee you the cast of big bang theory could not build a robot.

But they can drive one at least as well as some teams!
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XVczPBZ5oxU

[Jared Russell]

I propose calling this outlandish idea the "FIRST Robotics Competition".

[The_ShamWOW88]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

I propose calling this outlandish idea the "FIRST Robotics Competition".

I see what you did there....

[FrankJ]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

But they can drive one at least as well as some teams!
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XVczPBZ5oxU

Is that a game hint?

[Flimsor]

I think I this is a great idea! I heard that a long time ago Dean Kamen invited a bunch of sponsors to do something like this. At one point, they ended up betting on each other, with all the money going to FIRST

[Mike Schreiber]

Originally Posted by themccannman

I guarantee you the cast of big bang theory could not build a robot.

They have a science consultant who is a physics professor at UCLA, and actress Mayim Bialik (plays Amy) has her PhD in neuroscience. They're smart people, they may not be engineers, but I'm sure they could build a working robot, even if it isn't Einstein level.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Mike Schreiber

They have a science consultant who is a physics professor at UCLA, and actress Mayim Bialik (plays Amy) has her PhD in neuroscience. They're smart people, they may not be engineers, but I'm sure they could build a working robot, even if it isn't Einstein level.

To be fair, most FRC teams can't build a working robot.

[themccannman]

Originally Posted by Mike Schreiber

They have a science consultant who is a physics professor at UCLA, and actress Mayim Bialik (plays Amy) has her PhD in neuroscience. They're smart people, they may not be engineers, but I'm sure they could build a working robot, even if it isn't Einstein level.

I didn't say they were dumb, or stupid. But none of them specialize in any of the fields used in FRC. Besides, mayim bialik, all of the others have a background entirely in acting. I feel like simply having them promote FRC would be a better choice. Having them build a robot wouldn't add to visibility. However, maybe having them team up with experienced mentors and building robots to compete against each other might be more successful and interesting.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by Doc Wu

How about including a celebrity team? I'd like to see what Will-i-am and the Black Eyed Peas come up with. Or a team from Mythbusters...

I like that idea - Big Bang Theory vs Mythbusters!

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

I like that idea - Big Bang Theory vs Mythbusters!

I don't think that would be a very fair competition.

[Cory]

There was a local soap box derby type race held up until 2001 here in the Bay Area as a fundraiser for a nonprofit that featured something similar. They had a high school division and a corporate division. Most of the local FRC teams competed in it. Compaq, Hitachi, HP, KPCB, Sun, and pretty much every other influential tech/VC company in Silicon Valley participated.

The lengths that the corporate teams went to to outdo each other were pretty ridiculous. They had teams of engineers working on them full time, some did wind tunnel testing, one had 2 members of the US Olympic bobsled team as their pushers at the beginning. I can't even imagine how much money they spent each year.