A couple of days ago ABC News interviewed FIRST founder Dean Kamen.
His very inspiring interview can be seen by following this link:
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4729231&affil=wabc
If you are unfamiliar with FIRST, please take 6 minutes and watch this interview. Because, "it is working".
Please post any comments or questions.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Saturday, April 26, 2008
NPR Coverage of FIRST
Yesterday the NPR talk show "Talk of the Nation - Science Friday" did a story about robotics. They included a great interview with Dean Kamen (the founder of FIRST) and one of the members of the "Thunder Chickens" (one of the winning teams from Atlanta). They also had on the show other computer and robotics professionals. It turned out to be a great discussion.
You can hear the entire interview by following this link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89942783
Science Friday is a great show, I've been a listener for many years now. It was about 6 months ago when they asked for listeners to add their own videos to the Science Friday website. My daughter had just created an outstanding video about FIRST, which you can view on my YouTube site if you follow this link. We submitted it to Sci Fri and it took them about 3 months to actually post the video online. Even though it took them forever, in the end I was extremely happy about having her video on their site. I heard via email from the Science Friday staff that they liked our video and were happy to have it on their site.
Apparently they liked FIRST a lot because they've created their own video. Unfortunately, it looks as though they've removed our video and replaced it with theirs. At any rate, they did an excellent job. You can watch the NPR video at this link: http://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/watch/10100
Anything that will keep FIRST in the news is a good thing in my book.
You can hear the entire interview by following this link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89942783
Science Friday is a great show, I've been a listener for many years now. It was about 6 months ago when they asked for listeners to add their own videos to the Science Friday website. My daughter had just created an outstanding video about FIRST, which you can view on my YouTube site if you follow this link. We submitted it to Sci Fri and it took them about 3 months to actually post the video online. Even though it took them forever, in the end I was extremely happy about having her video on their site. I heard via email from the Science Friday staff that they liked our video and were happy to have it on their site.
Apparently they liked FIRST a lot because they've created their own video. Unfortunately, it looks as though they've removed our video and replaced it with theirs. At any rate, they did an excellent job. You can watch the NPR video at this link: http://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/watch/10100
Anything that will keep FIRST in the news is a good thing in my book.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
New Photos
Just a quick post tonight to let you know I've posted new photos of Team 904 in action. You can see them on this site, on my slide show, or you can see them in my flickr site @
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rogerlsmith/
Leave comments, let me know what you think.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rogerlsmith/
Leave comments, let me know what you think.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Turning Pro
So, yesterday I watched the final matches of the 2008 FIRST Robotics Competition. I wrote a short post about it last night, but yet there is still one thing that I can't get out of my head. Dean Kamen (FIRST founder) gave a speech and one line has resonated with me since then.
It has often been argued if FIRST is a sport. A lot of teams start from after school clubs and don't get the recognition as being a sport. It's a tough call, but FIRST is far more than a club; it's an academic sport. A sport that requires both intellect and the physical ability to accomplish a task that changes every year. FIRST promotes science, technology in the same way that sports promotes athletics. Don't get me wrong, I believe being physically fit and in shape are among the top priorities of today's youth.
FIRST follows right behind as athletics for the mind.
Once you can realize that FIRST is a cerebral sport, Dean Kamen's quote makes sense....
Yesterday Dean said: "FIRST is the only sport where everyone can turn pro"
Science, engineering and technology students have a 100% chance of turning pro after college.
So, for all the football, basketball and baseball players out there... what are your chances of turning pro?
It has often been argued if FIRST is a sport. A lot of teams start from after school clubs and don't get the recognition as being a sport. It's a tough call, but FIRST is far more than a club; it's an academic sport. A sport that requires both intellect and the physical ability to accomplish a task that changes every year. FIRST promotes science, technology in the same way that sports promotes athletics. Don't get me wrong, I believe being physically fit and in shape are among the top priorities of today's youth.
FIRST follows right behind as athletics for the mind.
Once you can realize that FIRST is a cerebral sport, Dean Kamen's quote makes sense....
Yesterday Dean said: "FIRST is the only sport where everyone can turn pro"
Science, engineering and technology students have a 100% chance of turning pro after college.
So, for all the football, basketball and baseball players out there... what are your chances of turning pro?
Saturday, April 19, 2008
2008 Season Complete
Well, the 2008 season came to a close today. I watched the coverage on NASA TV, and when they quit airing the broadcast at 6pm EDT (right in the middle of the finals) I had to switch to the webcast.
It was an awesome set of final matches with the team I picked many many weeks ago coming out on top. Team 1114 paired with Teams 217 and 148 were crowned the World Champions for 2008. Great job teams, you certainly deserved this win.
Last year when we were in Atlanta, the first President's Circle was announced. They wanted people to make short videos on how to get more teams started, and then post them to YouTube. We (my daughter and I) made our video suggesting we start a website that could be the focal point for getting new people involved in FIRST. Our video can be seen on my YouTube site at: http://www.youtube.com/rogerlsmith We did follow through with our suggestion by creating: http://www.firstobjective.org
The new President's Circle contest was announced today with details following in a few weeks. The idea this year is to create another video that could be played as a public service announcement on TV. The video would describe FIRST and encourage more people to get involved. The final part of this challenge would be to get your PSA aired on TV and as many Internet sites as possible. My daughter plans on studying video production in college, so you can bet we'll be all over this one.
Anyhow, FIRST Overdrive is officially over, but there will be various off-season competitions that pop up around the country. We here in West Michigan plan to host our own off-season competition in October.
Stay tuned as we shift gears, looking for ways to promote FIRST, trying to get new teams started. But plan on one more time in October where we'll shift into Overdrive.
It was an awesome set of final matches with the team I picked many many weeks ago coming out on top. Team 1114 paired with Teams 217 and 148 were crowned the World Champions for 2008. Great job teams, you certainly deserved this win.
Last year when we were in Atlanta, the first President's Circle was announced. They wanted people to make short videos on how to get more teams started, and then post them to YouTube. We (my daughter and I) made our video suggesting we start a website that could be the focal point for getting new people involved in FIRST. Our video can be seen on my YouTube site at: http://www.youtube.com/rogerlsmith We did follow through with our suggestion by creating: http://www.firstobjective.org
The new President's Circle contest was announced today with details following in a few weeks. The idea this year is to create another video that could be played as a public service announcement on TV. The video would describe FIRST and encourage more people to get involved. The final part of this challenge would be to get your PSA aired on TV and as many Internet sites as possible. My daughter plans on studying video production in college, so you can bet we'll be all over this one.
Anyhow, FIRST Overdrive is officially over, but there will be various off-season competitions that pop up around the country. We here in West Michigan plan to host our own off-season competition in October.
Stay tuned as we shift gears, looking for ways to promote FIRST, trying to get new teams started. But plan on one more time in October where we'll shift into Overdrive.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
News and Announcements
Tomorrow, April 17, 2008 is the beginning of the FIRST Championship in Atlanta. There will be webcast coverage for those wishing to view online and also NASA TV will be covering the competitions on Friday and Saturday. You can view the webcasts by following this link: http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/robotics/first/atlanta-finals-2008/
Tomorrow morning FIRST is also announcing the new FRC control system. Follow this link: http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc/content.aspx?id=8976 after 9am EST.
For any FRC team heading to Atlanta, if you'd like a jump start on your scouting, check out the data on http://www.firstobjective.org. Go to http://www.firstobjective.org/myteam and pick on 2008 Scouting Data. This will give you a spreadsheet of data for every team in every division in the Championship.
Good luck to all teams participating in the Championship!
Tomorrow morning FIRST is also announcing the new FRC control system. Follow this link: http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc/content.aspx?id=8976 after 9am EST.
For any FRC team heading to Atlanta, if you'd like a jump start on your scouting, check out the data on http://www.firstobjective.org. Go to http://www.firstobjective.org/myteam and pick on 2008 Scouting Data. This will give you a spreadsheet of data for every team in every division in the Championship.
Good luck to all teams participating in the Championship!
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Two Weeks Gone
Wow, it's already been 2 weeks since our competition in West Michigan. In one way it's been wonderful to have some time to do other things, in another it's been sad not preparing for another competition.
Never-the-less, FIRST has not been "back-burnered" in my mind. We have been talking about ways of getting some FIRST Lego League teams started in our school, and I think we'll start acting on some of those thoughts this week. This week is spring break for the kids, wooo hooo! But I still have to go to work....
We've also been working on ways to get FIRST and FIRST Objective noticed in general areas of the Internet. I've added FIRST Objective to MySpace, so if you have a MySpace account and would like to be friends with FIRST Objective, go to http://www.myspace.com/firstobjective
FIRST Objective has a few friends, none of which I believe are interested in high-school robotics...
Look forward to more regular posts in the future. I needed a little time to catch my breath.
Never-the-less, FIRST has not been "back-burnered" in my mind. We have been talking about ways of getting some FIRST Lego League teams started in our school, and I think we'll start acting on some of those thoughts this week. This week is spring break for the kids, wooo hooo! But I still have to go to work....
We've also been working on ways to get FIRST and FIRST Objective noticed in general areas of the Internet. I've added FIRST Objective to MySpace, so if you have a MySpace account and would like to be friends with FIRST Objective, go to http://www.myspace.com/firstobjective
FIRST Objective has a few friends, none of which I believe are interested in high-school robotics...
Look forward to more regular posts in the future. I needed a little time to catch my breath.
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