Interesting: FRC in Google Searches

[ROULT]

I was playing around on Google Trends, and looked for the search trend of First Robotics Competition.

The resulting graph looks very nice because it appears to be a periodic function multiplied by an ascending line.

Don't know if this is of any use or not, but it looks beautiful to me, and wanted to share it, haha. Here it is.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by ROULT

I was playing around on Google Trends, and looked for the search trend of First Robotics Competition.

The resulting graph looks very nice because it appears to be a periodic function multiplied by an ascending line.

Don't know if this is of any use or not, but it looks beautiful to me, and wanted to share it, haha. Here it is.

Attachment 20826

The secondary peak (corresponding to championships, maybe?) is getting comparatively smaller as time progresses, as well.

[EmileH]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

The secondary peak (corresponding to championships, maybe?) is getting comparatively smaller as time progresses, as well.

I would assume this peak is when the competition season starts, seeing as the interactive graph showed that as March.

Also interesting is that the most regional interest comes from Israel.

[jfish872]

Its interesting that FRC gains interest every year.

[Roboshant]

Very interesting information. What I found rather weird is the fact that, although searches went up for "FRC" (obviously skewed due to other same acronyms, but follow general Jan-March pattern) and "FIRST Robotics Competition", searches for "FIRST robotics", "For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology", and "first robotics competition " went down. This can all be found here.

[messer5740]

First peak is kickoff. EVERYONE googles EVERYTHING they can about the kickoff and robots of previous years.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

The secondary peak (corresponding to championships, maybe?) is getting comparatively smaller as time progresses, as well.

Originally Posted by EmileH

I would assume this peak is when the competition season starts, seeing as the interactive graph showed that as March.

Originally Posted by messer5740

First peak is kickoff. EVERYONE googles EVERYTHING they can about the kickoff and robots of previous years.

An interesting thing to note is that if you drop FIRST from the query, the March peak becomes much stronger than the January peak, March increasing year over year relative to January rather than declining. I'll toss out this hypothesis to explain this counter-trend, but I can't think of a test for it:

The January peak is primarily FIRST insiders (including former FIRST members and mentors), looking for info on this year's game. Year over year, there is little or even negative growth because most of the veterans know to go to usfirst.com (now firstinspires.com) or chiefdelphi.com or their old team website or TBA or somewhere like that, rather than querying google.

The March peak is primarily FIRST outsiders, who have heard of the robotics competition going on through friends and family members, but who didn't catch on to the name "FIRST", and if they did, they may have search for "1st".

If this hypothesis is true, this means that the word is increasingly getting out beyond the FIRST insiders year over year.

[WSiggs]

So the first rise of interest before the January spike each year must be registration.

[TheMilkman01]

It's good to see tangible proof that FIRST is growing annually. Seeing this graph reminds me of our YouTube Analytics over time, especially the "dead zone" of summer. Here's it for contrast: http://imgur.com/J0mPVkG

Note: The sudden spike this year that skews the data is YouTube live streams of competitions. We've also created the most content this year, which is another factor.

[cbale2000]

Here's a few more related search terms on the same graph, looks like the abbreviated "FRC" is much more frequently searched:

Graph

[Knufire]

Originally Posted by cbale2000

Here's a few more related search terms on the same graph, looks like the abbreviated "FRC" is much more frequently searched:

Graph

Probably because FRC also stands for the Family Research Council.

[SpaceBiz]

Funny you should post this as I was was looking into this just the other day.

The most interesting thing I see in the trend is how the search growth year to year is outpacing the growth in number of FRC teams. The number of queries the has multiplied by a factor of just under 5 since my team's rookie year in 2008. If I am correct the number of teams has only (relativity) multiplied by a little over a factor of 2 in that same period of time.

This could be seen as growth in community recognition outpacing literal growth in number of teams. But with a growth in Google searches per capita in general... At a rate I am unaware of... I can't say.

[BBray_T1296]

Looking at the terms "First Robotics Competition, First Tech Challenge, First Lego League" is interesting as well.

Of course FLL is much more widespread explaining its huge magnitude. I am surprised that FTC appears so much lower though.

The initial spike in all the programs is coincident with kickoff, but I am interested in the occurence of the second. I am guessing it is the first week of competiton, as teams want to see what other robots are doing. FLL (and FTC) have long long seasons so it would likely have to be the beginning.

[Jalerre]

More discussion about this topic can be found here.

[TechWaffle]

I think that the largest peaks is people trying to find the manual for the 2015 game. That is because it says when you hover over the peak, it is January.