First, I just wanted to thank you for all of your patience and efforts in helping us with our project! I know we expected a lot in a short amount of time and then have made you wait to find out what is going on.
We have made our preliminary decisions and have contacted the teams that we will be working with in the coming months. It was a very hard selection process with over 150 teams submitting videos. Every team has a great story to tell, unfortunately, we could not feature everyone.
However, we will be seeing you at Regional competitions and of course in Atlanta for Nationals! Good luck with everything this build season and, again, many thanks for your participation!
I’m sorry to hear that you guys won’t be a part of the documentary. There is such an incredible story with multiple areas and levels that could be explored in your team. Actually, there’s probably enough material to make a documentary just about Team 842. Truth is, that is probably true about many of our teams.
Have a great 2008! Good luck to all of the FIRST teams participating in this project!
Jane
Thanks for the encouragement. We were speculating reasons why they would not select us when we submitted our information. A biggie is our location. Logistically, it would be difficult to have a camera crew and producer in AZ.
Also, we have received a bit of exposure already and media do not like to do stories that have already been covered. With so many interesting teams, our notoriety probably works against us.
Anyway, hopefully, this is just the beginning of a dearth of media stories about students who are thriving in an excellent extra-curricular academic competition that promotes, math, science, engineering along with gracious professionalism.
Team 341 “Miss Daisy” from Wissahickon High School in Ambler, PA
Team 488 “Team XBot” from Franklin High School in Seattle, WA
Team 1583 “Rambotix” from Ridge View Academy in Watkins, CO Team
1706 “Mango Fandango” from Timberland High School and Holt High School in Wentzville, MO
Team 2528 “Tough Ladies” from Western High School in Baltimore, MD
We got the notice today that 768 was also not selected, but I just read the list of teams that will be covered by the cameras. Congratulations to all of you - have a wonderful time working on the project!!!
I am not certian that ‘big’ names was the interest for this special. I draw that conclusion from my phone conversations with Tara C. She was looking for interesting human interest angles that teams might have. I do not know much about the five teams picked but team 341 seams to have a few interesting stories to tell about their help the Iraqi students program and bringing VEX to asia efforts. I learned of this via a quick google search and the real reason to have a team website. To tell your team’s story of promoting FIRST goals & values.
For my own curiosities sake, I’d like to hear from these teams what stories that PBS was interested in telling.
Why is that? I like the idea that the PBS production will feature teams that may not be the ones that we typically see every year on Einstein. The fact that these teams may be from “the middle of the pack” may actually be what makes them attractive subjects for the story - they are more representative of the majority of “average” FIRST teams and possibly more representative of the typical experience.
-dave
p.s. and the whole “no big name teams” is somewhat arguable. Certainly Miss Daisy is very well known on the east coast as a hard competitor and three-time Regional Chairmans Award winner. Team XBot is one of the longest-term teams from the Pacific northwest. They are hardly unknown quantities.
It may or may not be anything they can share right now or maybe they are a little busy with the holidays and Kick Off.
Any team chosen would have provided a wonderful, exciting human interest story. These five will represent FIRST well and will showcase the true grit of a robotics team. I’m sure of it!
Wonder what an “average” team is or typical experience feels like, although I understand the statement.
Edit: I guess I’ve met so many teams that dig deep and go the distance, it is hard for me to think of words like ‘average’ and ‘typical’ when thinking of FIRST teams. The makeup of each team, the build location, the decisions that have to be weighed and balanced. The tough decisions. How teams handle loss and how they handle success. That is what I meant, I did not mean any disrespect towards Dave or to the average, typical experience. I’ve just lost the concept and am having trouble finding it again.
