FIRST needs to be a part of this

Aside from the fact that I am a FIRST activist, I am also a computer geek. My training / background is in software engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, design, drafing, CAD, and web development.

I've felt strongly about the growth of the Internet and have been developing web 2.0 websites for a while now. My site: www.firstobjective.org is a web 2.0 community that is intended to get more people involved in FIRST.

So, I just found out today who will be speaking at the "Web 2.0 Summit", November 5-7 in San Francisco. Amazingly the list contains a lot of people that I highly admire.

First on the list is Elon Musk. Elon is the primary funding source for Tesla Motors, producing wickedly cool electric vehicles. Elon is also the founder and owner of SpaceX that is independently attempting to launch vehicles into low Earth orbit. I eagerly watch every launch from SpaceX and root for their team every time they attempt to beat the evil gravity.

Also on the list is Al Gore (former Vice President of the United States). Mr. Gore has been at the leading edge regarding our issues with climate change and he also won a Nobel prize for his movie "An Inconvenient Truth". An Inconvenient Truth was one of my favorite movies. I hope everyone sees it and listens.

Even still on the list is Lance Armstrong. I have been a huge bicycle racing fan long before Lance was on the scene (and even before Greg Lemond was on the scene), nevertheless Lance is someone I greatly admire. After surviving cancer, Lance won 7 Tours de France, more than anyone, ever. Lance understands how to get past things that seem insurmountable, cancer, L'Alpe Duez, etc. He knows how to get to tomorrow, which most of us just wait for it...

There are many other speakers at the Web 2.0 Summit that have impressive credentials, however my final person that I admire is Marc Hodosh. Marc is the leader of the Archon X PRIZE for Genomics. He has also been a consultant to Dean Kamen at DEKA Research & Development and is also Chairman of Dean’s FIRST Robotics competition in Boston.

Many years ago I heard Dean speak about FIRST, and that was my first real dose of FIRST. I hope that Marc can do the same at Web 2.0 and inspire more people in the way that I was inspired.

It's time for the world to embrace the Internet as a community rather than the "Information Super-Highway". We need to slow down a bit and everyone find their own community, whether it's Facebook (oh ya, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook is also a speaker @ Web2.0), or MySpace or FIRST Objective. Web 2.0 is here and FIRST needs to be a part of it.

GeekAid

Several days ago I heard about a new event to be held in Grand Rapids called GeekAid. Check out their website. I heard this on the radio, and when I heard the word Geek, of course I had to listen. What I gathered from the radio, is that this is supposed to be an art festival with profits going to scholarships for students going to college to study science and technology. I thought that was very cool! I put it in the back of my mind that it was happening on Saturday August 16.

So, a few days ago I decided to Google GeekAid to find out all the details; time, location, etc. Much to my surprise, the GeekAid website proclaimed it to be a Music and Arts festival with other vendors providing food and drink. It sounded like a big deal and as the rusty gears in my head started to turn, I thought this would be a perfect venue to promote FIRST and FRC Team 904.

On Friday morning I hit the contact page on the GeekAid website and shot them an email explaining who we are and what we do, and why it might be a good idea for us to be there. By early afternoon I had an email back inviting our team to be a part of the fun. WhoooHooo! So, bang, I shot out emails to all of our team in hopes to have some support, and I got back some emails confirming their attendance.

Friday evening and Saturday morning I gathered some business cards, our display board and some pamphlets explaining FIRST. We packed up the car and headed to the park for the kick off at noon.

We were warmly welcomed by the GeekAid crew and given a nice spot in the shade to set up, that soon became a spot in the sun... Nevertheless we had a great time talking about robots to anyone that slowed down as they passed our table. We had several people genuinely interested in helping out through donations. We also had some teachers and parents that just thought it was really cool what FIRST is doing.Aside from our participation, GeekAid was a blast. They had great bands that played all day, and they even had a guy playing guitar in between bands, so there was never a lull in the music. They had art auctions to raise money and had a variety of food and drinks as well.

Anyhow, I think GeekAid should be a permanent date on our calendar. The GeekAid folks plan to do the same thing again next year back at the same park around the middle of August. We're hoping to have a couple robots there next year and have people give them a test drive.

Are there enough sponsors and mentors?

So, I had 2 readers voice their opinion on my poll regarding if there were enough sponsors and mentors for every school to have a viable FIRST team.

The unanimous vote was yes, which makes me feel great.

But sometimes I worry about this. In these tough economic times, it's difficult for established teams to get enough sponsorship to sustain their team. As FIRST grows and more teams are started, it is going to be tougher to find enough companies willing to fund this type of program.

In my last post I wrote about the new FIRST in Michigan concept. With the potential growth of FIRST in Michigan, I certainly hope there are enough sponsors and mentors to go around.

Please take a minute and vote on my new poll. Do you think FIRST in Michigan is a good step for FIRST?

FIRST in Michigan

Today, FIRST made the announcement regarding the new structure of FIRST events in Michigan for the 2009 season. In this press release FIRST details how Michigan teams will compete in FIRST Robotics Competition in 2009.

In an effort to reduce costs and increase competitions, FIRST has broken up the state into 16 districts. Teams will then be able to compete in any number of the 7 different district events (I assume this is like a smaller regional). This should give teams the opportunity to compete in 2 district events whereas they may only have been able to compete in 1 regional event last year. The new structure also allows Michigan teams to ship robots between district events at a reduced rate. The teams that do well in district events will then compete in the state championship event and then can qualify for the world championship in Atlanta. 18 teams will be selected from the Michigan State Championship to go to Atlanta (equaling the number of teams sent from the 3 regionals in 2008).

The good -

It should be a lot more reasonable to compete in FIRST for Michigan teams. The district events will be closer to home and should reduce travel and shipping costs. Since Michigan is surrounded by water, it can make getting to an event a little more difficult (and expensive).

Since there will be more events in Michigan, it may make it possible for more administrators and government officials to attend, thus possibly encouraging more teams to get started.

The bad -

The regionals in Michigan (as we once knew them) may no longer be the pinnacle of regional events. All three regionals used to be the toughest in the world, and now that is being diced up and turned into smaller events that may or may not compare to a Michigan Regional.

The ugly -

Someone needs to find 4 more places in Michigan to hold district events. This may mean holding these events in a schools gyms. It may get tricky to find schools willing to turn their campuses into event venues during the dead of winter, and typically during exams and basketball season.


Whatever happens, it sure will be interesting. In these tough economic times, at least FIRST is trying to help out.

New Video

I think in my last post I mentioned that I had started working on a promo video for our FIRST Robotics team. I was hoping that my daughter would take over and finish it for me, however she didn't want to finish what I had started on our PC, but she thought she'd try to work on it on her Mac. As it turned out, the software that I was using on our PC lacked a lot to be desired and I downloaded a trial version of a pro package and it worked quite nicely.

As it stands now, she may or may not work on the video, I don't know. Nevertheless I spent a lot of yesterday working on it and I've posted the finished product on my YouTube site.

http://www.youtube.com/rogerlsmith

Check it out if you have about 3 minutes; I'm quite happy with the outcome.

Mid-summer update

So, just when I make the claim that I'm going to try hard to post something every day, I slip for a few days. But it's not because I haven't been doing anything FIRST related.

Sunday afternoon our FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) team held a fund raiser during a local car show, and I guess we did quite well. Fund raising is a huge part of a successful FIRST team, and doing it in the off-season is a wise use of time. During the school year and especially during build season, time is very hard to come by.

I have a few of my own FIRST projects that I've been working on too. The first of which is programming our VEX robot to follow a line. This has been a bit of a tricky problem and also the sensors are a bit finicky. When all the bugs are worked out of the program, I'm going to make a video and post it to YouTube. I'll post more about that here when the time comes.

Speaking of videos for YouTube, I'm working on a FIRST promo video for our FRC team. At some point I'll probably pass off ownership to my daughter, whom can do fantastic work with a video editor. Nevertheless, the concept for this video has been in my mind for months, and it hadn't taken off. Hopefully now that I've begun work on it, it will get finished by more talented hands.

Anyhow, it's mid-summer and FIRST news is slim these days. When I learn of cool stuff, I'll post it here.

I got nothing

I'm really trying hard to be devoted to writing something every day on this blog. I've had all day and I just can't think of anything new to write about.

This afternoon I watched IRI (Indiana Robotics Invitational) on NASA TV, and was very inspired by the last matches. At that time I figured I'd write some great analysis or match review, but now it seems a little late for any FIRST enthusiasts that may read this, and maybe a little too in depth for folks that are new to FIRST. For those wondering, IRI is an off-season robotics invitational that is played using the same game that was used this year (FIRST Overdrive). It is the largest off-season event held anywhere in the world (as far as I know). I wrote a piece about IRI a week or two ago; if you are interested you should be able to find it in the archives.

I guess I'll stick in a plug for my website. Whether you are new to FIRST or not, please check out my website. It serves 2 purposes; it is a community for FIRST enthusiasts to gather, share stories, videos and photos, and it is also a tool to help schools, sponsors and government officials to better understand FIRST. Please check it out and join if you feel I am doing a good job. You'll never get spam or anything unwanted, except an occasional newsletter. I am in the process of planning some major modifications, as it hasn't had a "face-lift" in several months.

Check out: http://www.firstobjective.org

Thank you.