Re: Somber alliance selections
 

DC 2012 was prretty creative but my favortie was the team member who came after being picked and simple said "I have nothing creative to say, so I'll just say yes."
The audience got a good chuckle out of that.

Re: Somber alliance selections
 

I don't mean to be a party-pooper, but I watch alliance selections for the alliance selections. I do appreciate a clever selection or response, but in my opinion, alliance selections really, really don't need to be "spiced up." In the course of an event, alliance selections are pivotal and that's what makes them fascinating.

Re: Somber alliance selections
 

118 usually does some special thing. In 2011, they made a "magic" e watt lightbulb that they'd bring up and power on when they accepted. 3928 at CowTown ThrowDown answered my request by saying "Neutrinos usually don't bond with things..."

Re: Somber alliance selections
 

I swear, the next time I hear a regional volunteer gripe about "graciously accept" during the driver meeting (yes, this happened at one of our regionals), I am personally going to go to every pit and ask every team to ensure that their member on the field finds a way to use those words during the selection ceremony.

Watching the people with this unreasonable aversion to a harmless tradition of a short phrase of slightly-questionable English squirm in discomfort is far more entertaining than any other "we accept" message could possibly be.

Re: Somber alliance selections
 

I take it you also enjoy the "tradition" of yelling "Robot!"?

The reasoning behind not using "graciously accept" is stated here.

Re: Somber alliance selections
 

Amusing/interesting that the OP in that very thread found it fitting to add the qualifier, "just getting caught up in semantics." ;)

Re: Somber alliance selections
 

I believe that the ORIGINAL use of "graciously accept" was that a team was originally intending to say "gratefully accept", but accidentally substituted "graciously". This was back in 1999 or 2000 or so.

Ever since then, probably about 90% of ALL FRC acceptances have used "graciously accept", and a fair number of the declines are quite similar for some reason. It gets really old after a while.

Re: Somber alliance selections
 

Semantics (the study of meaning applied to human verbal communication) is incredibly important when trying to accomplish one of the primary tasks of real-world, day-to-day engineering: clearly disseminating technical information across noisy channels.

Re: Somber alliance selections
 

The only objections I've ever heard over "graciously accept" are from people who clearly know what was meant and are upset that it was not communicated according to their set of prescriptive rules, not from people who legitimately found it confusing.

Re: Somber alliance selections
 

Yeah, we got a kick out of that one :D

Re: Somber alliance selections
 

We did this at KC this year too: http://youtu.be/QFHMrHR_mIg?t=5m1s "If Neutrinos had an electrical charge, we'd be excited to be on your alliance... We accept"

Re: Somber alliance selections
 

As a practicing magician I was considering having Angry Erik pick 4 cards out of a deck to determine who we would pick. Unfortunately, our picks were not determined until several minutes prior to selections and I did not feel comfortable enough with our picks to try and get the trick ready instead I focused on figuring out who we would actually be picking. :(

Re: Somber alliance selections
 

Just make it so the other 3 teams don't exist. :rolleyes: That way if you mess up, you look like a different kind of stupid. :D

Re: Somber alliance selections
 

Hahaha, not quite what I meant though. He would pick 3, 9, 2, and 8 in that order for Neutrino's just to give an example. Or Ace, Ace, Ace, 4 for Simbotics.

Re: Somber alliance selections
 

I can't say I've brought a fake pony out, but as drive captain I did normally do puns. Ex. "We'd like to make a storm with Team 1917 Tempest" (Bayou 2012) and "We'd like to Breakaway from the pack with 3937 Breakaway" (Razorback 2013). They are just about as cheesy as the ones the judges use when announcing awards.