FIRST appears in Blackish Ep. 6.17 “You don’t know Jack”.
The main robot “LeBot James” is a FTC robot provided by a local LAFTC team 3526 The Marlbots. FIRST has not acknowledged that an FTC bot was used and is the star robot of the episode. Why does FIRST choose to ignore this fact? FRC is in the episode as well but is not the center of attention. Shouldn’t all be good as long as STEM, robotics, and FIRST is promoted regardless of program.
Agreed. FIRST Corporate seemed more interested at promoting a FRC scene that is about 5 seconds long rather than promoting the FTC robot that was the star of the episode.
The star of the episode? Jack causes it to raise one arm (a climber hook?) and somehow gets an award for that.
At least this was less cringey than that episode of The Fosters.
I totally agree. We showed production what else it could actually do and they wanted it to be simple. That was not anyones choice in terms of coolness but a writers/production/director story choice.
I just watched it. Spoilers ahead if you wanna watch it
Honestly it felt like the show just made fun of anyone that does FTC especially compared to FRC, called Dean a weirdo, and the dad was a very mean (mod edit) the entire time. And the talk with the son at the end didn’t make up at all for the rest of the show being horrible.
Like I don’t understand how FIRST was okay with this.
To add on, I’m okay with the show really going a different direction and making it look a little underwhelming so that their viewers aren’t confused with whats going on. And I loved that they had the kid doing FTC instead of FRC. I thought at first it was to promote the smaller of the 2 programs
But when the curtain dropped and they showed what was essentially a Deep Space match it made the fact of what they had the son doing with FTC even worse, because all they did was raise an arm. They could’ve at least shown an FTC field with it all, had the parents catch the last minute of a match and watch it climb, or something.
Edit: During the FRC match when the dad called FTC “Dinky” I thought that Deans appearance was going to be this nice speech of how it’s “More Than Robots” and that its the same concepts being applied and etc, so on and so forth. It just made it really underwhelming when it was a 2 second appearance where he said something to the effect of “My parents didn’t get the inventing thing either” and having him be called a weirdo.
Eh. I don’t think everything with a FIRST robot in it has to be a full-on ad for FIRST. The appearance on The Fosters spread misinformation about the program, but this just seems like an episode about the kid doing robotics that happens to use FIRST’s robots to tell the story. Could have been better, could have been far worse.
Agreed. It was not horrible, but it was a little demeaning in terms of the main plot point being “kid joins a ‘robotics’ team but other kids join better ‘robotics’ teams”. As Luke_A_GPD said, it could have been better if the resolution around that plot point was something more along the lines of “just because the other guys look more impressive doesn’t diminish your accomplishments”… or maybe the FRC kids see potential in him and invite him to join them, or something.
It also seemed like the “dinky FTC” robot was a solo effort (I built this, I got the award for this) and again it might have been cool if there was more of a plot point around the team aspect.
Not even going to get into the conceit that he apparently joined a team, built a robot, and competed it, in the span of about … a week, with his parents knowing very little about what was going on…
Edit: This is not directed at the OP. I think there’s a reasonable FRC vs. FTC interests of FIRST debate to be had and those who know who was involved, etc. know I would never direct this at the OP.
Or, we could all just get excited about another example of robotics entering the mainstream, instead of complaining about it. Lots of people worked really hard to make this happen. It might not have been 100% accurate or explained the separate FIRST programs in detail. It may have even made one of the programs look lesser. But at the end of the day, can’t we just get excited for a change?*
There’s a First Updates Now episode in which @Libby_K suggests that we should embrace those who ask if FRC is like battle bots, rather than dismiss them as not getting it. I can’t remember the exact episode of quote, but the idea is that we should be doing whatever it takes to get people excited about STEM/robotics. If it takes them drawing comparisons to battle bots, let’s do it. If it takes a TV show which glosses over some of the finer details of the program, great. This is all about exposure and inspiration. We don’t need to get so worked up over the details.
Even if you hated it, remember, some people worked really hard on this. Negative, non-constructive comments can hurt.
*Of course not, this is the internet.
Some of you people would complain it wasn’t raining on a sunny day.
I agree completely. Much effort was put into this episode from everyone. It took an army. Even the FRC teams had to spend 10 hours on set. Some of them had terrible drives, work, and other commitments but came out to promote FIRST regardless of screen time. In the end, FIRST did acknowledge all the teams FTC and FRC. What matters is that FIRST was on the mainstream and that someone out there watching gets excited about STEM/robotics.
I agree with everyone who is saying that it’s awesome that FIRST/STEAM/STEM is being put into the mainstream media. But the only thing is is that the difference between FTC and FRC weren’t explained. Noone explained that FTC isn’t worse because the robotics are smaller. it’s just a different section of robotics, and that should have happened. I do think that it’s super cool that this was put out!
I saw some posts on Discord that disparaged the show because it was inaccurate. For example, we saw a glimpse of a FIRST RISE banner, but the game they showed was Destination Deep Space. Someone even complained that there was no Sandstorm.
Instead of complaining about that, I prefer to think of it as a pile of easter eggs and hidden references that only FIRSTers will really get. I got a kick out of seeing 3309’s robot on TV for example. While the world just saw a glimpse of a cool robot, we know who those people actually are.
The show definitely took liberties with FIRST staples such as safety glasses everywhere. And I laughed at how the boy and his dad were able to walk right through the alliance player station, practically bumping up against the backs of drive team students who were busy driving their robots. We get to chuckle at the inside knowledge that no, that’s not actually how it works.
I suppose it’s no different than what doctors, cops, fire fighters, lawyers, coroners, CSI professionals, SWAT and Seal Team members must feel when they see shows about their lives on TV.
This. However at least people know something about what firefighters do outside of tv.
Or that the General Lee didn’t do enough jumps in the latest episode…
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