FIRST Indiana Robotics Analyst Desk
The FIRST Indiana Robotics main stream does a great job covering what's happening on the field. But there's a whole audience it wasn't reaching—new fans trying to understand what they're watching, strategy-minded mentors who want to dig into the match, people who just want a little color commentary alongside the action. The Analyst Desk is the answer to that.
Technology Stack
A second channel with a different job
As the lead AV Director for FIRST Indiana Robotics, we already knew the production side of these events well. The question was whether the main stream was leaving an audience on the table—and it was.
The main feed focuses on the field. What it doesn’t have a lot of room for is the explanatory layer that helps a first-time viewer understand what they just watched, or the strategic depth that experienced mentors actually want to hear. The Analyst Desk is a second simultaneous stream built specifically for that content: a little in-depth strategy, a little “here’s what’s happening and why,” and some genuine personality from people who’ve been in the FIRST community for years.
The setup
The hardware chain starts with the main FIN production feed. That goes through a Blackmagic HyperDeck Shuttle for instant replay—so the desk team can pull up a specific moment, pause it, and actually talk through what happened.
From there, the replay output goes through a convertible laptop with a pen display, which lets the desk team draw directly on the frozen frame—circling a robot’s position, tracing a scoring path, annotating whatever they’re explaining. That annotated feed gets mixed in OBS with a camera covering the on-desk personalities and sent out as a clean second stream.
The desk feed can also be routed back into the main production feed, so when something worth sharing happens at the desk, it can show up on the main stream and on the venue screens as well.
Who's at the desk
The desk lineup pulls from the same MC and game announcer group that works the main event, plus strategy-focused mentors from programs around Indiana who actually know how these robots work. We also bring in special guests for a match or two—coaches, alumni, or others who have something interesting to say about what they’re watching.
It’s intentionally loose. The format works because it gives people who know FIRST deeply a place to just talk, without all of the structure & constraints that the main event requires.
How it's gone
The desk launched at the 2025 FRC State Championship and has run at every major FIN event since— including IRI 2025 and IRI 2026, and continuing into the 2026 State Championship.
Viewer numbers told an encouraging story: the main channel was down about a third from prior years, but the Analyst Desk channel pulled in roughly 150% of that difference. Net growth, not just audience splitting. The cut-ins to the main feed and venue screens also got a strong reaction from people in the building— it added production value to the event beyond just the second stream.