famous question about FIRST

[Dorienne]

I get that so much I have to keep myself from answering them before they even ask.

But really, what I do is I tell them it's the safe and much more fun version of Battle Bots, but I make it extremely clear it's not related to it at all. I explain the values of FIRST, the competitions, a game or two, what the build season is like..and they seem a lot more intrigued about that rather than Battle Bots. Some of them come to competition and they are so in awe that I already know they love it a lot more than Battle Bots. It's so great.

[Winged Wonder]

ah.. that dreaded question...

i get asked all the time. >.< usually, my response is something to the extent of "NO. We do not maliciously destroy 6 weeks of hard work, but if that happens while we are trying to achieve the objective of The Game...." i'm kidding about that last part. But really, i explain that the entire Purpose of FIRST is not to hate your opponent to the point of wishing to destroy all of their hard work and labor, but unfalteringly help them in every single aspect of the FIRST robotics competition, whether it has to do with the robot or not. then i briefly explain the layers of competition and such, ask them if their interested, and if they are, get excited because surely if they at least know what Battle Bots is then they may have hope to spawn a love for creating robots, not just destroying them.

[Jessica Boucher]

For those of you who were not at Battlecry, there were 3 Babson students who came to get a sense of FIRST before they do a project on it in the fall. When I first met them 2 years ago, I got the same reaction out of them: "You do Battlebots? That's cool". After giving the explanation, (which is a lot like Fin's explanation above) they did the smile and nod thing just like was also mentioned above.

So what did they say after about an hour of actually watching matches?

"This is the coolest thing ever! I mean, we've watched the webcast before over your shoulder and it seemed kindof silly, but this is really awesome!"

So the moral of the story is: keep a good response for the Battlebots question in the back of your mind, and the best way to hook people on FIRST is to get them to competition.

Another usable sidenote: FIRST was televised on ESPN2 long before the US version of Battlebots came out (I'm not too sure about the timing of the UK series, which spawned the US version).