Does anyone remember Pit News?

[Mike o.]

So how many of you all remember Pit News?...............................
With that said; those of you who do, what do you think if we brought it back into action? I think that it would be a great thing to bring back, granted that it had a rocky start and a very sudden end. I think that this time with a little more planning and organization that it could be bigger, better, and cooler, lol. Just a little thought that I had while thinking about my FIRST history. What do all of you all think about this idea?

Mike O'Brien

<<note: this is only an idea, this is not saying this is going to happen, I thought that I would just throw the idea out there, get people thinking about it, and see what the general response to the idea is.>>

[Mike Martus]

No, but I am getting old.

Where, when, by whom and about what?

[Mike o.]

I guess I should have done this at the beginning and explain what Pit News is, for those of you who don't know.

Pit News was a webzine that was created and ran by FIRSTers, during the 2001-2002 Season (Pit News CD Post from 2002). It was to be a monthly publication that would have articles written by FIRSTers about competitions, technical tips, technology news, FIRST news, Game News, other interesting general FIRST related news, etc. It had like one or two issues, and then kinda fell apart. If I had to relate it to something, to me its like a print format of the new FIRSTcast.

There we go, thats about it for a general overview of what Pit News is, hope this clears things up for those of you who have no idea.

So i guess to go along with my earlier post, what does everyone think about the idea of bringing back this old venture? Good? Bad? comments please.......

[sanddrag]

I definitely remember Pit News and was sad to see it go. I'd love to see the original article and photos of the Knight Krawler again.

Edit: I'd love to be a contributer (articles, tech tips, etc) once it gets going again if there's anything useful I could provide.

[Mike o.]

If I am remembering correctly, was the Knight Krawler story about the NASA Knight's homemade human transporter?

[dez250]

Wow Mike, a blast from the past. As one of the few "contributing editors" from the initial edition of Pit News: Direct from the Source i would love to help get the project back into roll. Send me a message via pm or aim and we can chat about where we left off 3+ years ago.

[Conor Ryan]

I've heard about it, I did some research on it when I helped get FIRSTcast started up. I'd gladly help you get pitnews off the ground again (if nothing else I can make sure you guys aren't talking about the same things as Fcast) Yeah it'd be great to get it off the ground again, maybe in a bit of a different way than how it was done before which might help it stay together longer.

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

From what I could tell if was an organizational fallout that did it. Perhaps if there was a common site for submissions, people would be able to submit articles at their own convenience based on a set of article requests, which would make things fun and unique.

Good luck

I'd be happy to contribute, and I'm sure many others would too.

[Mike o.]

I am very happy to hear that alot of people would like to get this off the ground again. I myself was an original member (wrote the story about the NASA Knight's homemade human transport). I think that with a little more planning and organization we can do this. Would anyone like to take charge when we do get things started, I myself dont mind taking charge. I still have access to some of the original stuff (i.e. the forums). I really would love to revap the old Pit News and get it off the ground again. What do you all think? I think that we should send out a call out for ideas and people that are interested in helping on CD, and kinda hold a general interest meeting online somewhere, be it an IRC chat, AOL chat, etc. Comments, suggestions, ideas?

Mike O'Brien

[Ashley Christine]

Oh I like this idea. Sounds really cool.
I am willing to help if its needed!! =)

[Matt Krass]

It's nice to see one of our inspirations coming back, it's a good feeling. We at FIRSTcast would like to coordinate with you guys, if you could contact us via CD, PM, email, IM or some other means I haven't thought of it would be great, We'd love to work something out with you guys if you're interested.

[Tomasz Bania]

I'm sure team 818 would love to help out with a project like this as we post a pit-news type thing on our site (currently not there but should be reposted soon). Hope we can help you!

[Jay Trzaskos]

I'm here to help and I would definitley love to contribute. Drop me a PM anytime guys, I'm always on CD.

JT
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[Bill Moore]

Originally Posted by Mike o.

Pit News was a webzine that was created and ran by FIRSTers, during the 2001-2002 Season. ... It had like one or two issues, and then kinda fell apart. If I had to relate it to something, to me its like a print format of the new FIRSTcast.

If it was a Webzine, does it still exist online somewhere? I've never heard of it until this "resurrection post". I'd like to see what was written back then.

With the growth of FIRST, there are more than enough content opportunities to have a sustaining publication, especially if you include the explosive increases in FLL and Vex initiatives. The problem from an editor/publisher standpoint is getting those who agree it is a good idea to actually contribute what they agree to do. (Spoken from experience, and many days of pleading with folks to "Please give me something to put in your column! We need to go to press and your spot is empty!" [NOTE: That's when it is nice to have a good collection of photos that can be used as filler.])

[Rick TYler]

Not to sound like an old stick-in-the mud, but why couldn't that just be done through the CD site? If you added an "articles" section similar to the White Papers library you would get an automatic distribution vehicle and it's no the kind of thing that would cause much extra work for the amazing CD crew.

The new "Pit News" area would be run by the editorial board, who would be the only folks who could post to it. Perhaps each "issue" could be a separate thread in a new locked forum. This might make it even simpler.