REMINDER: FIRST on TechTV May 13th at 9pm Eastern

[Erin Rapacki]

Ok, so the show wasn't perfect. But what's good about these shows that if we watched them without the sound (play them silently)... it's a nice way to remember certain years of play.

In addition, it's these shows that tell the rest of the country what FIRST is about... so now that some people may know what we're talking about when we mention FIRST, we'll already know what they've heard, and we will be able to get the correct facts to these people (also shows that you are indeed, truely involved).

I thought the show was "cute"

(I was casted on a reality-TV show by WGBH Boston called "Lazybones." The show is similar to Junkyard Wars except that it is geared towards middle-school kids. Basically two teams of four, engineer laziness, by making a pb&j machine, an automatic bed-maker... whatever. We had to make automatic scrambled-egg cookers, and it was a lot of fun! This pilot episode was shot in one day at Olin College (they have such sweet machine shops there, woah). Basically I learned... that reality-TV will never be "reality-TV." I took apart a servo motor because I only needed a piece of it, the camera-man came in a half hour later and made me pretend to take it apart again so he could get the shot. )

[ahecht]

Originally Posted by Erin Rapacki

(I was casted on a reality-TV show by WGBH Boston called "Lazybones." The show is similar to Junkyard Wars except that it is geared towards middle-school kids. Basically, two teams of four engineer laziness by making a pb&j machine, an automatic bed-maker... whatever. We had to make automatic scrambled-egg cookers, and it was a lot of fun! This pilot episode was shot in one day at Olin College (they have such sweet machine shops there, woah). Basically I learned... that reality-TV will never be "reality-TV." I took apart a servo motor because I only needed a piece of it, the camera-man came in a half hour later and made me pretend to take it apart again so he could get the shot. )

I'm sure some of the guys on our team could tell you all kinds of similar stories about the "Robot Rivals" show they were on last month. At least your machine wasn't prebuilt for you when you showed up.

[CoachClint]

Yeah, all that you guys are saying and more. What was that?

There is a saying that says there is no such thing as bad publicity, but...this was BAD.

Other than the offensive commentary and the total omission of our alliance partner(We love you 435 RoboDawgs!!!)...

The show was BOOOOOOOOOOORIIIIIING!!!

I LOVE this competition and I was falling asleep! I watched it at a friend's house and I am sorry I inflicted that show on them. I will have to take them to a competition to make it up to them. Ugh...just awful.

Anyway, that's all for now.

[Swan217]

Good Points:
-Simple explination of the game
-The Lucas waving to the camera
-Focus on students - hardly an adult in sight


Bad points:
-Poor voiceover
-Making quite a few people look ameteurish and just ridiculous (segment on 395 forgetting their bib? Come on!)
-Not enough drama - they showed very poor matches when I KNOW these teams had better ones. Made it look like these teams were great failures at Ntls
-Didn't mention anything about regional action.
-Camera adds 10 lbs, and I picked the wrong time to wear that rediculous green hat, cuz I was on camera A LOT in the background (3 teams on Curie will do that)
-Camera man kept getting in my way on the field - and all for naught! Hardly any good shots...

[ngreen]

Originally Posted by Erin Rapacki

Basically I learned... that reality-TV will never be "reality-TV." I took apart a servo motor because I only needed a piece of it, the camera-man came in a half hour later and made me pretend to take it apart again so he could get the shot. )

Sounds like my team.

"Wait. We need to take a picture. Do that again but this time do it with your safety glasses on."

I agree pretty much on everyone elses assessment of the show. It was boring. It seemed like they just watch an episode of Robot Wars and thought they could repeat that. I would rather see a very in depth show about a few teams. Or a very widespread one about the competition. I would have liked to see some excepts from the opening and closing ceremonies. My favorite opening ceremonies part was Dave's speech. He actually created my new personal slogan, "Step on Mars." I would have loved to see this part in the video because it represent a lot of the 6 week build. There is a lot of improvement that would have made this show not so cringinly painful to watch. Dean and Woodie must of avoided Curie or were too busy on the segway to make a video clip.

As a note I think that any team who is in a video for TV needs to always step up the GP. Sometimes they try to throw out that it was the alliances fault after a loss and it doesn't look great and I am sure even hurts the alliance team that much more. This just seems to happen everytime we get on TV and it disturbs me. So if you're going to be on TV you must step up the GP to the point you let them know how alliances work.

I've got to go to bed that is good for now.

[Andy Brockway]

I certainly agree that TechTV tried to slant this towards Robot Wars. They should have done their homework on how the event works. For most people the actual event details are not important, the impression they have of FIRST after viewing this show is. However I like that they concentrated on talking with the students.

I have to commend the students for doing their best to turn it back towards the good that is FIRST. Sure we all are not at our best right after losing a match but they never fell for abusing the opponents when baited by the announcers.

[Joe Matt]

You know there would be problems when the previews say FIRST it "Robot Wars with polite school kids and no Brittish Accents." I think the whole "Use that hook to drag their robot to the junkyard' thing was just bad. Dose FIRST actually screen these things for accuracy?

[Rich Wong]

The coverage of FIRST Competition was good BUT the commentaries made by the TECHTV spokesman were awful, insulting and degrading.
To an outsider watching a FIRST competition for the first time would think some of the teams were a bunch of idiot students from the comments.

I was insulted by many of the comments made about some of the students and their robots.

I’m still debating the merit of this TECHTV coverage.

[RoboMom]

This show was sooooo disappointing. They completely missed the big picture. There was no context. If I knew nothing about FIRST, I would wonder what the fuss was about and why anyone would want to do this. As others have said, they made it boring. I felt like they edited out most of the important stuff. The show suffered from a serious editing problem and a serious script problem.
I have to give a lot of credit to the four teams that were followed. They showed a lot of restraint, and grace. It’s not easy having a mike stuck in your face and asked inane questions. I found the announcers comments and questions filled with stereotypes (there was one baiting 103 about playing against a bunch of girls or something to that effect.)
Maybe it would have been better to follow only a couple of teams and get a better picture of what they are about. The documentary that was on last year was better. It’s too bad because this one will get more exposure.

[Sam J.]

Other than the offensive commentary and the total omission of our alliance partner(We love you 435 RoboDawgs!!!)...

There is no way anyone could have prevented it.

BTW - Our team name is the "RoboDogs". The "RoboDawgs" are, I believe, team #288.

[EddieMcD]

It was okay... The behind the scenes stuff was excellent, and captured it better than that aforementioned A&E show back in 2001. It was when they got to the actual matches that it started to go downhill. I thought it was going good until there was a comment about a ref halfway through match one which I will not repeat here. The match commentary was absolutely horrible. They seemed to do better halfway through the show until they inserted that match commentator again. It was downhill until the end. At least they inserted some other stuff (and Chris Leary wasn't half bad, all things considered) between the matches, but the match commentary killed it. And I also saw better matches with all those teams (yay, NASA TV) that they could've chosen from. Bottom line: it tried to get the message of FIRST across. Then it inserted that match commentator, and it just didn't work. That, and they could've pointed out the difference between the Chairman's Award and winning the competition. We here at Chief Delphi give it a 2... out of 5 (I hope someone gets this reference).

[roboticscom13]

X-Play one of the only non boring shows to watch on that channel. I did not have the time to see the special and i was wondering if anyone had a digital copy they would be willing to share with the community. I would love to see what you guys are talking about.

[Christine G.]

Originally Posted by BillyGoats

w00h00!!! i saw our robot!!! did not think we would but i have seen it and there is still 20mins left!

Well I not only saw our robot I saw YOU and the rest of the team! The Team is Famous and I wasn't there! It was a great shot of the Intimidator hanging. Nice Yellow Voltage Hats!