FIRST Live Blogging

I’m at the UMN right now, listening to the FIRST Kickoff event for Minnesota. I’m doing a brain dump right now and I might clean it up later.

8:38 AM
A guy from prior lake gives a pep talk, making a joke about a superstar and a nerd. Then he goes on to say that the scince guys are going to make the money in the future.

8:41 AM
Dean oF IT speaks
The dean tells about the the school and the campus and says “come to UMN IT!”. The regional is March 28-29 at the U. Dean Crouch?

8:44 AM
Tim Young? – Benild coach (Really good team)
It will be an eye-opener. He also warns against overcomplex robots that in the end fail and sit at the starting gate. Nobody expects anthing of you and if your robot goes around annoying everyone else’s robot then you are having a

Funny quotes:
“Buy bandaids”
“Buy Fire extenguishers”
“I guarentee you that your robot will catch fire at least four times”
`”Buy bandaids”
Tank treds don’t turn on carpet.
Mobility is key. You need to be able to position your robot quickly and percisely.
I love this guy. Funny and smart.
KISS! Keep it simple stupid.

Never build things to your maximum size because it will always be bigger
You might need your hacksaw or drill to reduce your size or weight. This is why you need to build inside of an envilope.

“Simple robots win”!!!!!!!!!!! Motto!!!!!!!!!111111oneoneone

“Buy Bandaids!” and he’s done. Beautiful.

9:01 – 30 seconds till the video

9:02 – Video
“Your first everything”

9:04
Govener of New Hamshire. John Lynch
He’s thanking everyone…. doing nothing of extreme importance.
He now says that It’s a chance to have a dream and to make it come true.

9:06
318 rookie teams 1190 veteran teams.
John Ablely speaks
NASA Makes the webcast possible
Not about machines, it is about people. Learning about how to work together because “it is the only way to be successfull in the world.”

Greater than the sum of its parts.
EDIT 9:26:

9:08

Gracious Professionalism. This guy that founded it from MIT talks about the first events and how “well gracious and professionalism go together”.

9:12
This guy is still going on about gracious professionalism and I’m wondering when we’ll see what this year’s event is going to be…

Chariman’s award.

9:19

Pall condonus the charman is now speaking . He describes the multitude of teams present in FIRST Robotics. Record 308 rookie teams this year (We’re one of them!). Applause for rookies. His goal is to make it a high school varsity sport like basketball or hockey. Interesting. I wonder what coatches and teams would say about this.

Finally he mentions that we have a game to unveil. Now they are showing a youtube video about this one team 3xy

LOL! The people in front of me are sleeping here, and their team mentor just told them to wake up.

On the FIRST Youtube channel the videos we watched are avaliable.

added at 9:46

LOL! The people in front of me are sleeping here, and their team mentor just told them to wake up.

On the FIRST Youtube channel the videos we watched are avaliable.

9:26
The chairman is now talking about the FLL teams and energy savings. I wonder if they are going to continue talking about all of the other FIRST leagues.

9:27
AHA! Now a lady is talking about the unveiling? Wait, no she’s not. It’s time to talk about the sponsorships. FIRST has 9million in scholarships.

9:30:
Peter Arrives

9:36
This guy is on now, I didn’t catch his name because Kword crashed (Boo on alpha software!) and I’m now in OO.o. He says that he is the last speaker before they uncover the competition. Ok, peter says that he is the head of the first something….
He’s saying that he stole from the world of sports to make it every bit as exciting as sports and it worked because FIRST is now huge. Ok, so now he says that that could also be a problem because of things like winning at all costs. And that’s not what [FIRST] wants. He questions how we balance the want to compete with the generosity. Unlike other sports FIRST has a much bigger picture and that’s what he thinks will be the difference. Again he says within a few minutes we will see the new season… and get no sleep.. and all this stuff.

AHA, he now has a difference. With the skills that you learn while participating in first you can chance the world while with bouncing a ball you can…well…bounce a ball. The robots are just a vehicle.
He used a new (to me at least) word here – coopertition. as a competition + a cooperation.