What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Hey CD!

I know that for most of us on here (myself included), robotics is our life. But I still have some time for other things too. That made me wonder, what activities/hobbies do FIRSTers do, other than robotics?

For me, I play trumpet in marching band and am on the school's cricket team. :D

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Well.

I volunteer at FRC events.
I volunteer at FLL events.
I mentor an FLL team.
I work at an FLL summer camp.
I obsessively refresh Chief Delphi.

wait...NOT robotics. Not much.

I'm on the cross country team and I was the captain of the volleyball team.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Woah woah woah, people do stuff BESIDES robotics? :ahh:

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

I take photos of stuff that isn't robotics related. You can see some of my stuff on my flickr page below. I enjoy the hobby, but it is an expensive one once you get into it. I haven't had much time to shoot since champs, but I'll get back in the swing of things after school is over.

I've been trying my hand at videography recently, but I've only had time at events so all I've done is make highlight reels.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

I sleep sometimes, but then I end up dreaming about robotics so I'm not sure if that counts...

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

I like this question. Its really intersting to see what other FIRSTers do.
I'm a cross country captain
I run track
I bake and can, and have gotten several ribbons at the Wisconsin state fair
Chemistry Olympiad, and Mathleates.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Robotics is love
Robotics is life

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

I'm confused...

Do you mean like taking a break for meals?
Do you consider browsing CD not robotics?
How about cleaning the workshop? Does that count?

I really just don't understand what your getting at.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Fencing
Internship at U of A Astronomy
Also, I have to go to school.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

I run cross country, play baseball (both high school and travel), play the trumpet, and referee soccer games.

Other than that (related to robotics), refresh CD, Mentor FTC.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

This thread made me kind of sad because I realized that I don't do anything other than robotics...

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

-I play league of legends (It's a horrible addiction, I know)

-I draw

-I check facebook, chief, and reddit.com/r/nosleep a lot

-I play guitar

-I try to go outside but fail because all my friends don't want to go outside......(WHAT IS OUTSIDE EVEN?)

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Stuff that isn't robotics... sometimes I do my homework when there's nothing for me to do at a meeting, does that count?
I kid. Competitive Irish dance, clarinet, and creative writing.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

I'm on the Varsity soccer team, play percussion in band, and math team
But most of my time is devoted robotics, obviously

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

I'm lucky enough to live in the Pacific Northwest, so I climb quite a bit (rocks and mountains). Robotics never really stops, though - I brought my 1540 shirt to the top of Mt. Rainier last summer. That was a very cold picture to take.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

When I'm not doing anything with robotics..I

-Make contacts world wide with my amateur (ham) radios (I wear a my robotics team shirt to almost every meeting of the ham club I am with)

-play the violin.

-read this thread.

and not much other than that, robotics and ham radio are pretty much my life.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Well, historically I've done a variety of things concurrently with robotics...
-I was an editor for two years at my school's literary arts magazine, MUSE (though about 75% of the people on MUSE were robotics kids, so...)
-Play lots of Minecraft (mostly tech mods... robotics)

Probably 90% of my non-school life involves robotics, thinking about robotics, or talking with robotics people. It's not a balanced life, but I wouldn't have it any other way :)

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Wrestling, Boy Scouting, Ultimate Frisbee, Lifeguarding, singing.
What's interesting is that during all of these things, I'm still thinking about robots.
Seriously, I'll be singing, wrestling, and thinking about robotics simultaneously. It's an interesting combination.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

I like old things:
I am refurbishing my old house built in 1880. (been doing this for 17 years)
I am refurbishing my old Airstream camper built in 1973
I am refurbishing my old Ford built in 1957
I refurbish and use old lawn and garden equipment
I refurbish and customize old bicycles
I just got 2 old go carts that I plan to get running this summer.
In other words, I have too much stuff.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Besides robotics...

I play 2 school sports (lax and tennis) and play lacrosse all summer
am an avid runner
play piano and guitar
work at a retirement home and at a fro-yo place
participate in church activities (band/service/mission trips)
volunteer at the variety club
am part of a bunch of other less time-consuming clubs at school other than robotics
and am a student.

Yay for junior year.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Well when I'm not doing hard core procastinating I try to finish writing the scrpit to my Webcomic project Constant Threat.

I also am into herpetology. Those are Poison Dart frogs. In the wild they are one of the world's deadliest creatures. In captivity you can pick them up by had (but I wouldn't recommend it because it stresses them out).

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Outside of robotics, I play varsity soccer, run varsity track (and pole vault), rock climb a lot (outdoors and indoors), lifeguard, and do lots of homework (junior year :( ). Robotics and soccer are my biggest commitments over the year, though school is pretty big as well :P

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

There was a thread about what else do you do from 2012. Check out the amazing spud-guns towards the end of the thread.

I still do the things I mentioned in that thread including ham radio (Hi I'm K3FXS). I'm really not doing robots since I'm off on a year long trip on "Americas Great Loop". You can see the trip on our site. But, I still packed my VEXIQ parts for those rainy parts of the trip :rolleyes:

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

I play the saxophone for my school band.
I also game a lot.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

I write rap. I'm not usually the one recording it, but I do all the writing.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

I am not sure how I should feel about me reading that as "I white rap"...

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

I try to balance my personal interests with my school teaching obligations and of course the coaching of team 25.

In the summers I volunteer/work for the state museum on dinosaur digs out in the Montana frontier. This summer I hope the remainder of the Troodontid skeleton we got pieces of two years ago shows up. Ive been going on various expeditions in paleo and zoology topics since I was 13. (as a kid I would find interested adults and set up the trips- they do the driving and such)

I recently was involved in starting a mineralogical society at the local university and we are looking to make a regional database as to species and occurrences for NJ. Ive been collecting minerals for 40 years and some day I will sit down and photograph them all (about 2000).

I also like to get out in the woods with my camera and binoculars and see what birds and reptiles I can scare up. I used to breed hundreds of colubrid snakes but I passed that on because of the enormous care needed for my rodent colonies. My bio class at school used to raise most of my mice in their genetics projects.

Of course being long term happily married I also enjoy spending time with my wife and family. Grandkids are nice because you send them home when they get messy....

Frankly Ive been looking for something new to discover. My health has been compromised lately and I will soon be retiring and I want to put my brain to good use. There is still a whole lot to learn.

Summer is soon upon us. For the students out there, let me suggest that in the free time you have each summer take some time to try some new interest or topic. Pick something totally different every year and diversify your knowledge. Robotics is great but think of how much power you can develop if you can apply all you have learned to a whole gamut of topics and directions.

WC

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Lets here it!

topic.....Dean Kamen

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

This year I've dedicated all my time to robotics and school.
When I free I like to relax and hang with friends
also i'm into shooting guns and building AR-15's. If I still lived in New Jersey then i'd be hunting and fishing a lot but I don't sadly.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Softball
Flag Football
Fantasy Football (I'd like an FRC/CD league next year)
Hobby Electronics
Golf
Cooking

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

I am a 1st degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do,
I monkey with my linux server,
I do my schoolwork
I minecraft most of my remaining free time.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Stage lighting and FLL team mentoring. I also program in my spare time if that counts as outside robotics.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Photography
Golf
Riding my 1997 Honda Pacific Coast (aka PC800)
Judge FLL events
Staying out of trouble (It's hard though)

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

I road bike race, cyclocross race, mountain bike, rock climb, ice climb, and ski. Fun times in Colorado.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Well, graduated and occasionally mentor my former team as well as my cousin's team.
Went to college, and subsequently got into Magic: The Gathering. Guess it's from one all consuming hobby to another.
Also, somehow, I keep finding myself back on CD reading threads about games that I didn't actually play.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Work.

Between work and robotics, I don't have a lot of free time. I'd like to get back flying R/C aircraft, but there's something about lack of available daylight hours around here...


And I work some tech stuff at church once a week.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

I do any type of skiing I can manage: cross-country, alpine, and water, depending on the season.

I race auto-x with my wife in my 21-color turbo'd Miata. She will typically drive her MK2 MR2. Related to this is maintaining and occasionally modifying cars, either my own or helping friends.



I race in the 24 Hours of Lemons with a team, Mod Squad, that specializes in MR-2s. Our latest car is a VW Vanagon body on a Mk3 MR2: http://blog.caranddriver.com/lemons-...-evil-vanagon/

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Ice Hockey

Fantasy Ice Hockey

Procrastinating

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Other stuff I do:

• I'm the Program Director and a DJ at WRPI, the RPI college radio station. I play mostly indie rock and hip-hop.
• Full time Mech. Eng. student, obviously.
• I'm on a manufacturing process design team as part of a class at RPI that hopes to compete nationally at the end of the year.
• In the 30 seconds a week that I get to breathe, I enjoy the latest Nintendo games as well as the tabletop deck-building game Dominion.

It's important to have a balanced, well-rounded life outside of robotics, especially if you're doing this stuff in college. A healthy balance is important. It's tempting to go all in on robotics as it feels so meaningful and purposeful, but don't put all your eggs in one basket.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

I play a little Warhammer 40k on the side.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

I play alot of video games such as Skyrim, Minecraft, The Binding of Isaac:Rebirth, Bastion and TF2, listen to music and fiddle around with an old set of bagpipes.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Besides robotics and ChiefDelphi, eh...well:

- I've been playing soccer for most of my life. I play basketball for fun, but I'm really horrible at shooting so...yeah.
- I play the violin in my orchestra.
- I play quite a bit of League of Legends...
- I browse social media extremely frequently. Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, those three mainly.
- I've slowly been learning video editing! (Let's be honest though, half the reason for that is to make a cool reveal and season wrap video next year for robotics.)
- I'm also an Eagle Scout, so I've been involved with scouting for a while.
- Listen to a lot of music.

I'm very grateful for my senior year, I only have like 4 legitimate classes so I've had a bit more time to focus on all this other stuff as well as robotics more.

There is Fantasy First, you could probably make/join a team there, though I'm not entirely sure how it works.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Fantasy FIRST is similar, but you choose robots instead of football players.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Besides robotics, I...

• Swim on my school's varsity team
• Am a Girl Scout
• Teach programming to younger children

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

I went drag racing yesterday. In this. Which I drove 200 miles to get to the track. (this picture is from September, when I raced on Drag Week)

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Used to play football (varsity)... quit that for robotics (off-season was trying to compete with build season).

Used to debate (varsity)... quit that for football.

Mostly, I learn more programming stuff and play video games with my friends (hoping to get decent enough at fighting games to maybe go to EVO this year).

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

I'm on my high school's FTC robotics team currently. I plan to join FRC next year as a junior, or wait a year and join as a senior. We'll see how things go..

Outside of robotics, I play viola in the school's symphonic orchestra, I'm the president of a "Girls Only" Coding Club that I started, I take pictures of everything and post them on Instagram (@innej99, hmu:p ), I play xbox (on the weekends:( ), and I occasionally go Geocaching with my friend around town. (:

Love this question! Love learning what everybody else does in their free time. :]

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

I play flute, swim, and rock climb! And, ya know, try to do homework somewhere in all that

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

I play trumpet, speedcube, work, and have quite a few other small hobbies.

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

I showed this thread to one of my teammates/friends and we both just start laughing. Good Joke! :D

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

When I was on 2815, their judge notebook always had profiles on the mentors. Each year, the kids would come up to me and ask about my hobbies. Each year, I'd reply "This IS my hobby."

Though I suppose my side business selling things on Amazon counts for something. :)

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Do you sell FBA?

Re: What else do you do besides robotics?
 

Sleep? Homework? Studying?
I actually get around to these things every once in a while.
Also, Dressage/Hunter Jumper (horseback riding disciplines) xbox, TSA (Technology Student Association) and I love to volunteer. And meet people. Any Georgia team members hmu on pm! :)