Re: Most embarrassing thing to happen to you at a FIRST event?
 

2014 Waterford District Event: My rookie and sophomore year. I had a drawstring bag where I kept my scouting and strategy stuff, and a water bottle. It was immediately after opening ceremony that a lady started yelling at the top of her lungs "YOU'RE LEAKING!!!" non-stop! I ran to a trash can as quickly as I could to dump what water remained in my bag and bottle. I also spent 15 minutes in the rest room blowing everything off under the hand dryer. :o

2015 Southfield District Event: I was the team representative for alliance selection. I had done it before so I wasn't shaking at the legs like I had been my rookie year, but I was still somewhat nervous. I lost track of which teams had been selected, and requested an alliance with one that had already been taken. I recovered quickly and selected an available team. I've seen a lot of others make that same mistake, so at least I'm not alone. :D

Re: Most embarrassing thing to happen to you at a FIRST event?
 

i know that feel

Re: Most embarrassing thing to happen to you at a FIRST event?
 

In 2008 I was kicked out of the pits for wearing Keens, and I didn't have any other shoes. I had to coach from the stands.

Re: Most embarrassing thing to happen to you at a FIRST event?
 

Don't feel bad - whoever (read: me) placed our robot on the field for one of our matches in 2014 placed it the wrong way and would have wound up with a penalty for going into the other alliance's area in autonomous as well. Thankfully, there was a completely unrelated field fault and the match was replayed! You can be sure we got it right from then on out! :)

In finals 2 of an off-season competition I was driving. It was a 2v2 game and our alliance partner had some issues and wasn't moving. (Some driver station mode thing). We were capping and they said it would only take a second to get moving so we noodled 3 bins and put them on the scoring platform to prep. The other team then regained control and made a stack. I then proceeded to try to pick up a bin and knocked it over. Tried another knocked it over. Went to the third and knocked it over. Turns out picking bins off of the scoring platform is not our robots strength.

Re: Most embarrassing thing to happen to you at a FIRST event?
 

2014 The Bloomfield Hills Girls Competition: We were selected in the alliance selections and I had the team mascot's shield. I went out to accept and I was going to say 'you have our shield' but it came out as 'we have a shield'.

Re: Most embarrassing thing to happen to you at a FIRST event?
 

2015 Centerline District: Friday night, a handful of volunteers stayed behind after pits closed to build a castle out of totes and RCs, because these are the important things we do as volunteers. At one point we ran out of totes on the field so I went to run and grab a few of the spare ones, and as I ran I tripped over the step and wiped out. This resulted in a sprained ankle and a lot of rug burn on my legs (I was wearing shorts).

Luckily not many people saw it because the castle was blocking their view. Unluckily my girlfriend was one of the people who did see it. To this day every time we go to go down steps she feels the need to make a comment.

Re: Most embarrassing thing to happen to you at a FIRST event?
 

After our first finals match at Mount Vernon this year I needed to talk to the ref and the fastest way to get there was across the field. I stepped onto the field before immediately realizing the lights weren't green yet. Got a yellow card and the team made sure that I knew not to step on the field again. Apparently after over 300 matches as coach I still didn't know not to step onto the field...

Re: Most embarrassing thing to happen to you at a FIRST event?
 

What about that one drivetrain of yours in '03 or thereabouts? Something about window motors?

That's a relatively new one, but it's still important, especially this year.


I've been a casualty of the field rail a few times.

Re: Most embarrassing thing to happen to you at a FIRST event?
 

We may or may not have done the exact same thing at Battle of Baltimore 2014. Our coach ,after double checking with a programmer, set up the auto and the match started. Consequently, the robot, instead of driving into the zone, took off full speed in the opposite direction across the length of the field. It then slammed into the opposing side's alliance wall then backed up about a foot, and then did it again and again and again till auto was over. Not our finest moment.

You can ask just about any of the 2014 students about that event and they'll deny BoB ever happened that year. I can however vouch for the excellent event quality, if not for our particular performance quality at the event. :D

Re: Most embarrassing thing to happen to you at a FIRST event?
 

I think mine would have to be having a CIM motor go up in smoke right above my head and being one of the last people to notice. North Bay, 2015.

The motor in question was powering our forklift for tote stacking so it was positioned at the top of the frame. The forklift was strapped down tight for transport and we were assembling, checking, and getting things ready for competition. Someone powered on the robot to check out the pneumatics, the robot tried to home the lift carriage, which would have been fine, except that by grand misfortune someone* plugged in the encoder cable the wrong way, which caused wonky readings, which told the software "hey, the lift's not in the home position, better move it there"...

I smelled burning. I looked down to see if our RoboRio or any of the control boards or drive motors were smoking. Nope. I started calling out to the teams in the pits adjacent to ours. "Hey, something's burning. Is it yours?"

Then I realized everyone was staring. Then I saw our coach running and waving frantically at us. Then I looked up. :ahh:

Burning CIM motors stink.

*not me, I swear

Re: Most embarrassing thing to happen to you at a FIRST event?
 

ninja'd

The programmers very clearly stated that the low goal auto goes backwards. This incident did inspire better practices on our team though, we now tape copies of an auto mode list to a the laptop (and the gurney, and the corkboard)

Good thing our programmers got to redeem themselves at Ramp Riot...

Re: Most embarrassing thing to happen to you at a FIRST event?
 

2015 Northeastern Event- Trying to find my friends in the hotel and running through it for an HOUR AND A HALF getting looks from the janitors and security guards at 9-10 at night...

2015 District Champs- While creating a light-saber conga line with my team and some people from other teams, my mom and grandmother unexpectedly walked in to the event. I'll never forget the look of surprise on their faces (Since I am usually somewhat quiet at home)

I also managed to trip on my Jedi Robe and fall down half a set of bleachers. :)

Re: Most embarrassing thing to happen to you at a FIRST event?
 

For me, saying "landfill" instead of "beacon repair zone" as a game announcer in the local FTC qualifier. :p

Re: Most embarrassing thing to happen to you at a FIRST event?
 

My first year on Team 449, our second match of the 2008 Trenton Regional quarterfinals.

After a huge upset win against the top-seeded alliance in match 1, the whole team was amped. Our inter-match maintenance routine involved checking our drive train with a flashlight - this was the first year of AndyMark's 6'' mecanum wheels, and they required a lot of care as they had a tendency to pick up crud from the field and were made of fairly thin metal that would bend in on the rollers and prevent them from turning. One of our team members, after finishing this job, left the flashlight sitting in the robot next to a wheel on the cart.

Well, you can guess what happened next. The flashlight remained in the robot as we placed it on the field, and proceeded to jam itself in one of our drive belts and render us immobile for the whole match. We lost the third match, and the rest is history.

Among various other incidents, this has entered our "team folklore" and all of our new students hear about it at some point or another.