FIRST Objective

[rogerlsmith]

Hello Everyone,
Almost 2 years ago I started the website FIRSTObjective.org in hopes of reaching more people and encouraging more students, teachers, mentors and sponsors to become involved in FIRST. Right now the site has a little over 100 members and I've had positive feedback from a lot.

I've promoted the site on different teacher websites and have tried to get others to invite people, but lately it seems to kind of hit a wall.

I'm at a point where I feel the website is getting stale; I tried changing the colors around a while ago, but I can't say that I'm happy with that anymore.

If anyone has any suggestions regarding ANY aspect of the site, I'd certainly appreciate hearing from you.

My site is at: www.firstobjective.org

Thank you,

[flyingcrayons]

I think that the site is an awesome way to raise awareness, but with the forum, isn't that what Chief Delphi is for?

[viking]

I would encourage you to continue with this website. I believe its value is in providing an independent appraisal of what FIRST is all about.

We have other resources:
USFIRST.ORG = Official information and forums
CHIEFDELPHI.COM = Friendly portal for FIRSTers to discuss all aspects of the program. Good, bad and ugly


FIRST OBJECTIVE = Objective information pertaining to how a teacher or administrator could us the program.

Keep up the good work.

[rogerlsmith]

The forum on Chief Delphi is primarily for people already involved in FIRST. The forum on FIRST Objective was intended to be a place where people finding out about FIRST could ask questions and get answers from students, teachers and mentors that are already involved. I never envisioned it to be doing the same thing that Chief Delphi is doing.

Thanks for your feedback. I still encourage all suggestions and criticisms.

Thanks,

[flyingcrayons]

in that case, keep doing what you are doing, and spread the word! if you are attending any regionals, get the word out... and if you aren't, go to one... its the best place to get the word out about your site...

[dbell]

Heres some of my comments on your web site.

first of all, the home page is quite out of date.
"With the 2009 FRC kick-off right around the corner"
You might want to update it with something maybe about the season.

The map of the teams is a cool idea. But with only two teams on the map, i must say, its pretty lame. Im not sure what it would take to get all the teams on there, but that would be much more useful. Maybe some coordination with the blue alliance??

The calendar is a good idea, but once again, theres nothing there. Maybe adding things like regionals, the championship event, and even some off-season events would be helpful.

just my two cents.

[ATannahill]

no offense but it is a bit weird for you to be saying that when your user title is "excited for the 2009 (water?!) game"

[rogerlsmith]

Hey thanks for the suggestions. There are a lot of things that are "out of date", however I had always hoped that FIRST Objective would build a community of users that would help provide up-to-date content. There is no way that I can provide all the content myself, however I can provide a platform where the community can provide it.

The videos, map, calendar, forums, blogs, etc., are all there for the FIRST Objective community to add content to. A place for ALL teams to help more schools get involved in FIRST. I had always envisioned the FIRST Objective community to be keeping the site up-to-date, and my role would be to promote the site to schools, politicians and other officials needing to know about FIRST.

I had hoped to organize a "video of the month" contest, that users would vote on their favorite video. I also suggested that teams create videos out of their Chairman's Award presentations, and guess what. FIRST is now wanting videos submitted with the CA entry.

Thanks again for any and all suggestions. If you are interested in providing content to the site, whether it is just a marker on the map, or a video, or a blog post, please take a minute and sign up. It's free, I have no sponsors, I make no money from the site, actually it costs me money. I send no spam, only a newsletter when I get around to it.

Thanks for your time,