FIRST Robotics Competition Blog

Hey FIRST fans!

Take a look at the video at the top of this blog - Dr. Jacob Komar (one of our Volunteers of the Year and a member of the team implementing our Webcasting program) and the FIRST staff at TwitchCon recorded this video a little while back. We want to take this opportunity to update you on the webcasting program for FIRST Robotics Competition!

Last February, Frank mentioned our pilot webcast program in this blog. Eleven events (on two routes) made up our pilot program for FIRST STEAMWORKS. The feedback we’ve received on the program has been overwhelmingly positive, and we’re very grateful for the events and volunteers that made last year’s webcasts possible. For FIRST POWER UP, we’re thrilled to be expanding to seven routes, covering 40 regionals, which is about 75% of the ones in the United States! If you’re interesting in volunteering to be our Webcast Operator at your regional, be sure to contact your Volunteer Coordinator.

As we mentioned in that February blog, depending on internet availability at each venue, our webcasts consist of a multi camera view in addition to a “program” view. The program view is generally similar to what is shown on the audience screen at the event, while the multi-camera view shows each camera in a quadrant on their own. To give you an idea, here’s some sample clips that were taken from the same match; the program view, as well as the quad view.

Each event will be assigned two channels on Twitch, the lower numbered channel will feature the “program” view, while the higher numbered channel will carry the “quad” view. The exact assignments of events to channels will be announced in the coming weeks. We’ll be posting the channel assignments online at https://frc-events.firstinspires.org as well as adding them to our API. You’ll be able to watch and chat along right inside the event result pages or by using the Twitch website, desktop or mobile applications.

We’ll continue to be broadcasting our largest events, like FIRST Robotics Competition Kickoff and the FIRST Championship, on our primary Twitch home, twitch.tv/firstinspires, during 2018. On this channel, starting at 10am Eastern time on January 6, 2018, you’ll have your first look at FIRST POWER UP. The broadcast will include portions that are live from the official field, and our world-famous* field tour videos will run immediately following the game reveal. We’re also going to run some pre-show content, so you’ll have a chance to verify your connection and volume. If you want to test your connection between now and the big day, try watching the videos linked earlier in this blog. If you can see and hear those videos, you should be good to go. As an aside, there will be no broadcast from the Founder’s Reception this season.

If you want to make sure you’re in the loop on everything FIRST does on Twitch, please consider following, or subscribing to, our main channel at twitch.tv/firstinspires. Following is free, and offers some basic benefits like receiving push notifications when we go live. Subscribing, which starts at $4.99 per month, offers some extended benefits like custom emotes to use across Twitch. FIRST receives a portion of all subscriptions, and if you have Amazon Prime you get a free subscription each month, which means you can sub to firstinspires for no money out of pocket! To be clear, you do not need to do either of these in order to see our content, including Kickoff. Following or subscribing are completely optional.

We hope you enjoy our expanded coverage of the regionals, and that you’re as excited for January as we are!

Alex

*They’re world famous, right?