I was watching the Arizona Regional today and during the finals in between matches they broadcasted a short video with Will Smith. He was talking about how cool science and technology is and how it lets him record his albums at home with his kids.
I don’t if this was made specifically for FIRST or not. Did anyone else see it? Was it actually shown at the Arizona regional?
On a related note, have there been other instances where celebreties have been involved with FIRST? Did they actually come to a regional or just endorse the program?
They must have pulled that one out of the FIRST vault o’ videos or something cause that thing is OLD SCHOOL.
I remember seeing that when I was a freshman in high school, back in 2002 at Nationals. I thought it was hillarious then, and I think it’s even funnier now. Will Smith apparently still does music, but I haven’t heard anything from him in a while.
This was also when Mandy Moore preformed at Nationals and everyone left mid-performance.
Back in the 2002 Championships in Epcot, the same/similar video was played. It seems that perhaps this was a replaying of that older footage. (haha, Ryan and I posted this at the same time…)
On another note, there have been a few celebrities at FIRST events, though I can’t recall any at this time besides one. Football fans (especially from the Pittsburgh area) would probably be excited to here the Franko Harris has been doing some small endorsements for FIRST in Pittsburgh and appeared at a FIRST Robotics event on the CMU Campus.
If I remember correctly, it was shown at the 2002 Championship event in Disney. That was one of the ways I think FIRST was trying to integrate FIRST into the mainstream, using celebrities.
Also, that year Mandy Moore performed at national, and had probably about 400 room keys thrown to her, oddly enough, Disney keys didn’t have the room number on them:)
That video along with others was released to teams as a 2002 compilation on VHS at the end of the season. The tape they gave us also has a FIRST Corp video, a Chairman’s Award promo, and news stories from ABC, CNN, National Geographic.