My friend sent me this video his school made and I thought it would be awesome if there was one done at champs this year. It would show some robots, but it would mainly focus on the people of FIRST (words of Dean: “It’s not about the robots”…).
I personally think it would be a great idea and am willing to help out and coordinate it if there are enough people interested in seeing something like this happen.
What are your thoughts?
People constantly propose making one of these types of “viral videos” at a FIRST event, and frankly, I always immediately want to yell out “no”. This was recently discussed in this thread. I’d make the argument that it’s the “wrong type of recognition”. It does nothing to further the message of FIRST and to the masses would just be interpreted as “nerds doing something silly”. In my opinion, a video like this is much better.
I don’t care about the video going viral. I just think it would be cool. I thought the video my friend’s school did was pretty cool, so why not apply a cool idea to a cool program (FIRST)?
I have a feeling that a video trying to be “cool” by a person who goes by the moniker of “SuperNerd256” may end up not fulfilling its goals… 
Hence the name change.
See attached.
-Nick
What’s wrong with that “type of recognition”? Each year, our team puts together a fun video showing all the cool stuff our robot did (including accidents/crashes) and adds some fun music. We show this to freshmen, who get motivated by cool robot action, and join the team. We show the morgan freeman video to the parents, who push their kids into joining the team.
FIRST being an activity for the masses is a great idea, but in order for it to come true, it really needs recognition, in any way possible.
My issue with this logic is that we don’t want to stray too far into ‘just get ourselves out there however possible’.
**We don’t want to make viral videos and put the FIRST logo and branding in them if they’re not going to be a good representation of FIRST and its community. **
(I can expand on this later, but I’m not in a place to make much longer than a quick Chief post.)
Everyone was a freshman once.
I think if it’s done well a video like this can be a great promo for FIRST. Let me emphasize that it must be done well. An example could be the Grand Rapids LipDub. I think it was done exceptionally and really encompasses a little bit about what we’re like here in Grand Rapids.
Some of us longer than others
This is one of those times where at first it seems like a good idea and I know for fact it would be a fun idea. However when you look at it from a clear Marketing/PR perspective, this isn’t something we want out there representing us as a community.
The more professionally done videos such as the Morgan Freeman video, or this year’s championship wrap video**, do a much better and clearer job of defining who we are, and conveys everything FIRST embodies in a fantastic way. While doing a video like this would get FIRST some publicity and exposure, you want to put your efforts and resources towards getting exposure that says a lot about the program, get’s the word out broadly, and makes it stick in people’s minds.
As anyone with a background in Marketing or PR knows, there’s a lot of “noise” out there, especially in today’s online digital world. When producing content, you want your best effort to make sure it will rise above the noise.
To be honest, I feel like another typical viral type video that’s been already done, simply won’t rise above the noise.
**On a side note: I just want to say how much I love this video and the way it was produced. Not only is it fantastic quality, but without any words, it show the ideas, feelings and energy the 2013 Championship had. Plus I am a huge fan of the music!
On the subject of filming things at FRC events, What is the policy on quadcopters with gopros? I would immediately think “no” because of the R/F transmitter and no for a hundred other reasons, but I still dont know for certain.