Well, FIRST finally responded to me, but just asked for more info, and did not give final approval of the game. I’ll keep you guys posted on how this goes.
Give me details! 
What did they ask for?
here is the email:
Hello Mike,
I received your request for approval to use FIRST FRENZY: Raising the Bar materials but I will need to have a little more detail on your video game project before I can give you authorization to use them.
Specifically, I need to know who will be using the game - is it just for team members or will it have wider distribution? Do you plan to sell it? Also, exactly which names & images are you looking to use? Some of the graphics and video were created by NASA and are not copyrighted by FIRST so we may need to pursue approval from them.
Thanks in advance for providing this additional information so we can respond to your request.
Regards,
Marian Murphy
Team members or wider distribution? I think under the conditions that we are, it’s only for team members.
Do you plan to sell it? I think not
What kind of images etc,? yes I think we will use some copyrighted ones, like FIRST and NASA, it should not be too hard to get permission to use them though…
I think we need to decide on some of the content… even though I dont think we will use any of the copyrighted videos from NASA…
I hate to poke my nose around in projects I’m not involved in (well, okay, I love it), … but I was under the impression that the project would be open source (hosted even on sourceforge last I heard). Now, while probable distribution would be limited to team members, it would by nature of its open-ness be available to the general public. And it seems to me an important and potential aim of the project could be to get the public interested in FIRST and through this informed, … a good marketing strategy, but one which would require further distribution. If I am correct that it will be open source, you should definately remember to inform FIRST of what licsense it’ll be (I presume GPL, to which there might be legal issues that FIRST needs to wade through).
Edit: And if it is the “General Public License”, that should be a little eensy weeny hint that it should be available to the “General Public.” 
i said in my response that we were making it in an effort to spread the word of FIRST, not to make a profit (but i said it with more words and details)
another email:
Hello Mike,
Thank you for your reply with additional feedback on your video game
project. We appreciate your team’s support and initiative in doing this to
spread the word about FIRST.
As I’m sure you can understand, FIRST goes through rigorous procedures to
ensure that materials with our name on them adhere to the highest
standards. In this case, particularly with possible sales involved (even
if not for profit), it is also important for us to make sure we review this
opportunity carefully from every perspective, including legal and licensing.
I recommend that once you and your team have your business plan finalized
to the point of defining your objectives, specific game content, and
distribution and pricing plans, you send it to us so that we can review and
address appropriately.
we need to get moving on makign all of our final decisions before FIRST will give it’s approval. here are some issues that need to be resolved:
[ul]distribution
[list]cost or free?
[li]distribute or download?
[/li][li]ads - how will people find out about it?[/ul]
[/li][li]controls
[/li][ul]voodoo or mega config?
[li]what special features?
[/li][li]multiple control schemes with options?[/ul]
[/li][li]game modes
[/li][ul]season? individual comps?
[li]difficulty levels[/ul][/list]
[/li]this is just some of what still needs to be decided. most of these have threads and polls. everybody go back to those threads and give some imput. if you haven’t voted yet, please do. i want as much input as possible before i give our final decisions to FIRST
While I’m not in the project too, I think the first thing we should do is create another thread and write down a business plan, which includes everything they listed. This should happen first before any programming or even any design.
Question: What platforms will it run on? Please say Mac
MrToast
It will initailly be for Windows, but there are people ready to port it to Mac after we get it up. Hopefully it won’t be too much of a hassale, as the 3D engine we are using works with MacOS, and input/output is the largest amount of changes in ports.
i will be heading up the porting process, i would like to get it to work on the Mac first (only kind of comp i have and will buy) but i would like to get it to run on Unix/Linux too… The only thing that i have not decided on (and about the only thing that i decide on) is what language to use… I could use OBJ-C/Cocoa for the mac, but then i have to redo the whole thing again for Unix as Cocoa is a Mac-only language as far as i know. If i used C++ for the mac i could port the Mac version (with alot less programming) to Unix… But then Unix is getting the shaft of a double port and the first port usually isn’t as good as the orig…
The only reason i see for using Cocoa is that Apple offers some nice technologies that they have documented well for Cocoa, but implementing them with C++ would mean that i would have to be much more familiar with the language and anything i want to implement from apple than i would have to be with Cocoa…
I have some books on Cocoa and there is Apples docs that cover most everything… If you know of a good book for C++ (C++ for macOSX would be sweet, not not necessary) tell me (PM me… no need to hijack this thread more… )
How about writing in parralell instead of straight porting?
Meaning, the Mac ver. does the same thing as the Win32 ver.
You copy our algorithms, but write it so it would be apropriate for Macs.
thats what i want to do… but i need to become a better programmer first… I am currently taking a class in C (something the school offered cuz of FIRST, and the bot is C now… we aren’t focusing on programming of the bot though, so it will actually help, as C++ and Obj-C are based on it. But hell yeah, i don’t want to sit around while the win game gets weeks and weeks ahead of me… that would suck. By the way, if you are a mac
(or Unix/Linux) programmer and want to help, by all means speak up, right now its just me.
If he uses C++ for the Mac port, then he probably won’t have to write that much! We will be using CS, meaning that almost all of the input/output will be handled for us. The main thing that changes on ports is the I/O!!! Algorithms will work the same on the Mac as on a PC. All that will have to be done on that will be a recompile. The port will, at least should, end up being a relatively trivial thing.