2008 / 2009 President's Circle

I've been patiently waiting for something new on the FIRST World Tube YouTube site that would indicate the beginning of the 2008 President's Circle. As you may recall, my daughter and I made a video for the 2007 President's Circle, and we were initially invited to be part of their group, however I guess since we did it independent of our FRC team we were not eligible.

No worries, we'll do it again this year, 'cause you know that I am hugely into promoting FIRST.

Well, just for the heck of it, yesterday I went to the US FIRST website, to see what was new. It looks like they've posted the particulars for the new President's Circle, but didn't post it on YouTube. So, if you're waiting for a video on YouTube describing the President's Circle, the details are on the FIRST website.

Here's the details:

This year’s challenge asks you to put the power of advertising to work for FIRST. Here’s how it works:

Develop an Internet Ad

• Teams should develop a 30 or 60-second video/TV ad that will persuade students to start a FIRST team. What do you think is the right message to convince students to start FIRST teams?
• Your ad should be targeted to the audience you’re trying to persuade to start a FIRST team. For example, if you’re an FLL team, target your ad to FLL-age kids; FRC teams target their ad towards high-school students, etc.

Post Your Ad on the FIRST You Tube Channel by November 1, 2008

• Please title it “ Team 2008 President’s Circle” (please include your program and team number in the title of the ad, e.g. "FRC Team 5017 2008 President’s Circle").

Get Your Ad Placed Everywhere

• Work with local broadcast media to get your ad placed as Public Service Announcements (PSAs).
• Be creative in getting your ad as much exposure and visibility as possible.
• More visibility means more new FIRST teams.
• A panel of FIRST judges will decide the best video/TV ads.

The winning videos will be announced and shown at the 2009 FRC Kickoff on Saturday, January 3.

And it doesn't look like the winners get to go to Dean's house this year... Oh well, maybe next year.

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.