You know you're addicted to FIRSTohol...
 

...when you ask for the time, and when someone responds, you ask, "AM or PM?"

Re: You know you're addicted to FIRSTohol...
 

So true. Losing time at Robotics is not hard at all.

Also Asking where is my stripper and no one thinks of the one not for wire.

- When you start your local chapter of FIRSTaholics Anonymous

"Hi, my name is Bill and I am addicted to FIRST"

Bill B.

- When you anticipate the last Thursday prior to ship date, because you know it is 'move in time' at the wood shop, and you are going to get to be next to the robot (awake and asleep) until the ship time. :)

- While on this long weekend, one of your non-Robotics friends actually visits you, brings you junk-food and caffeine, because she hasn't seen you since the beginning of January.

... When between Lego League, IRI, your team and other teams, you own enough FIRST shirts to wear one per day for a month straight without repeating!

- Katie

When you say that your going home and you head to FIRST

Class
 

After an allnighter, you still manage to drag yourself to your "intro to engineering design" class, but find yourself reading chief delphi...

Bagh... who needs IED anyway... I have FIRST! :rolleyes:

When you have a class with nothing to do and you say you will do your homework but go to ChiefDelphi instead.

when you read all of this, and can still think of more

when the majority of your college essays and scholarship applications are all about FIRST

not to mention your laws of life essay written in entirety on robotics.... and your last line reading "FIRST: not just robotics, but a way of life. And I have chosen it as MY way of life"

When you see 191st street and remember 5 seconds in delta_t:ahh:

When your 1st question on 2-21 is
"I wonderer what next years game is??"

-You work 9 hours on your robot on valentines day.
-You have to check the delphi forums every day otherwise you go crazy.
-You work 32 hours on your robot in 4 days.
-You realize that you don't know what your going to do until April.
-You dream about robots.
-You've explained the FIRST competition so many times to your friends that your tempted to just make a pamphlet to give them.
-You see any kind of "battle bot competition on tv", and you cringe when the robot gets dropped in a pit or otherwise destroyed
-You been asked it FIRST is like battlebots so many times that you've lost count
-You begin to think about next years FIRST competition before this year's is even over

I beat you! 42 hours in 4 days! (Friday through Monday)

~ When you sit and read 8 pages of you know you're addicted to first when....
~ When you can relate to 90% of the aforementioned thread
~ When you purposely break thing just so you have something to machine.
~ when you respond to you know you're addicted to first when.

- when the robot goes crazy in autonomous mode, runs over a freshman (anybody less than a senior), and you yell at them for almost hurting the bot as they scramble to get out from underneath.

- When you use old robots as weapons

- If you find the words "charfe", "toonces", or "workish" funny

- ^ If you think other people understand your inside jokes

---When you wonder what it would be like to have a van door motor attached to your ears so you could finally wiggle the little suckers...
---When you can't wait to go to Texas (:-P)
---When you actually get offended that other people have seen your team's animation before you (and they're not even on the team!!!!)

you know you're addicted to FIRST when..
 

- When you fall asleep programming, and when you wake up you find the robot running in circles in auton_mode dragging the laptop by the serial cable (this Saturday night).

- When you yell at a Victor 884 that won't recalibrate.

- When your VP yells at you every day for skipping classes, and you still do it every day.

- When you begin to walk around the classroom in "auton_mode".

- When the only websites in IE History are usfirst, CD, firstcanadianredional.org, and sinclairsprockets.com

- When you havent played Counter-Strike for 2 months

-When you eagarly anticipate the time your coatch goes insane because it's funny.
-There's two parts to your life: robotics & homework.
-It's the day after the kick-off and you're already thinking about next year's play.
-You have nightmares of Dave Lavery describing how bins can't go under the bar.
-You scream at your computer, "HA! Take that Technocats!"
-Other people understand your gibberish.

-You can no longer distinguish between night and day,
-All your clothes are either stained with grease or burnt because you just couldn't wait for the part to cool before trying to carry it to the work area
-Day one classes consist of: spare (robot time), skip math (robot time), lunch (robot time), skip chemistry (robot time), Fluid power (robot time), after school meeting (robot time)
-You have nothing better to do than see if your bot can pull a car or two
-Teachers think that you are on drugs because you are always dazed from breathing welding fumes.
-Your average has dropped 10% since january
-You are afraid to go home because the robot will get angry and try to bite (pinch, gouge, cut, lacerate, incinerate) you.
-Styx is now your favourite band
-You have developed the condition know as Black Thumb, no matter how hard you try, you can't scrub the grease off your hands.
-You are now the robot, and it (the robot) controls your life

You are on a first name basis with Home Depot and OSH.

You never want to hear the sentence "I watch Battlebots" again when explaning what FIRST is.

All the local police officers know about FIRST after they thought the lights on in your building at 3AM was slightly suspicious and in the process of checking the place out got a 10 minute lecture on what FIRST is.

You dont update your lj more than once every week during build season and when you do, its only about FIRST.

you make your robot your valentine; buy it some candy
then notice it can't eat it; eat it your self; feel bad; and
get it a card promising to 'make it up to it'

...er.. i mean, i've never done that...:yikes:

-you know your addicted when....you read this whole thread and have done every single one of these things...lol

When there is a fancy party with great food and you only go to it for 5 minutes to get more caffine and get back to work on your robot.

You haven't even been to one of your classes this semester

You not only read all the posts here but are annoyed with how many times reading all the posts has shown up.

You know how to fix parts better than the engineers.

You spend more time working on the robot than at home or in school, and still work a part time job.

When you feel very refreshed when you actually get more than 5 hours of sleep.

When you average 3 hours of sleep per night for 6 weeks straight...

When you take previous years robots to school and see what you can make them do... (on one occasion, using the control system and optical sensors, i created a refrigerator alarm, once the fridge was opened, a motor drove it closed again, unless the proper sequence of buttons was pressed on a control pad off to the side. on another occasion, i created a remote controled tripod camera, capable of driving itself, panning, tilting, and zooming.)

When you hug your robot on a regular basis.

When you inhale enough aluminum to increase your body mass by a pound.

When you come home at one and think it's ok
When you live breathe and eat FIRST
When you haven't cleaned you're apartment in a week because you have been builidng
When you dream about FIRST
When it's allover and you can't remember what it was that you did with your time before FIRST
When you go to college and and can still say that you are on a robotics team

You know the alarm code for your school
You tear apart your school library, set up the ramp, and then tear it down and set it back up
You have a stack of pre-signed passes out of class
You know the local paper reporters by name
You can cite specific rules, and can find anything in the FIRST manual in a minute
When people on your team are dissapointed/worried that you don't know something about FIRST when they ask you
When your family minivan is known as the "official robot transport vehicle"
When you decide, instead of looking for a janitor with keys, to take the school tunnel storage doors off their hinges
When you average over 4 late nite Taco Bell runs a week

- You are still on the team even though you are in University
- You leave a calculus midterm early so you can catch the train to get back to the shop to do work
- You get kicked out of the university microcomputer lab for working on bot code
- You get kicked out of a pratical lab class for working on bot code during it
- You speak in P-basic
- The bot puts a foot hole in the wall and you are more worried about the bot than the wall.
- The bot runs over your foot in autonomous mode during testing, and you are more worried about the bot than your foot
- You work for a week straight before the kickoff so you dont have as much work to do for 6 weeks.
- You are the donation from your company.
- You are encouraging someone to drive down from Toronto to Houstan on a home-made cross between a moped and motorcycle with several two-fours of Canadian beer, and covered in First team stickers. (GO HICKSON!)
- You take a trip through the Universities wind tunnel to make it to the train station on time.
- You try to sneak past your significant other to work on the bot. (She found me in the train station on the wayto the shop from school)
- You start to shake when someone says "The fridge is out of colas"
- More of your notes for the last term have been written by someone else than you.
- The only thing that is keeping you awake is caffiene and sugar and force of will to finish the bot.
- You come up with more ideas for Seanny Dont.
- You think being shipped with your robot is a viable way of getting to the competition if you cant afford airfare. (Our crate can fit 10 people without cramming, we have proof)
- Your bot has speed holes, a speed dent, and speed grease.

Azash
"Call me Zashy and you die."

-Time is no longer measured in seconds, minutes, and hours, but rather how many bottles of Mountain Dew are required to keep you up that long

-If you expierence withdrawl symptoms when away from machine oil for more than 3 hours.

- Your parents just hand you the keys and the cell phone when you walk in the door...

-The security guards consider your bot as top secret as anything else in there

-The security guards recognize all the team members, and know the rules to the game

-You find away to apply everything you're learning to robotics (Newton's Law of Cooling anyone? Hmm, those motors get toasty...)

-people stop asking you where you've been... they already know.

-You pray for a snow day, not because you want to stay home, but because you want to work on the bot.

-You think your bot has a personality

-You think that your programmer could probably put one in.

-You say "disunkill that robot" and everyone understands.
-If they don't, you merely specify "hardware," "software," or "physical," and then they do.
-You are suprised about whether you see the sun or the moon when you walk outside.
-You wake up and realize that you have been writing code in your sleep.
-You are pissed off that Rob Bayer is in High School.

You know your're addicted...
 

...when you sneaked out of the house and helped
transport robots, tool boxes, ramps and platforms
around the city in the middle of the night.



:D

--when your parents invite you home for dinner every night and you politely decline... every night

- You have not seen your house in the daylight since the beginnig of the semester (yes, I have done this one)
- Sleep is a luxury item, caffiene is a necissety
- You find out from experience that the body can go indefinately without sleep, it is the mind that needs it. They only last 72 hours
- You refer to the manual as the 'bible'
- The folks at the burger joint know the team so well that you just need to tell them "I want the usual"
- When your team resorts to having races to see who can take apart and re-assemble the entire drive system to keep from going insane
- You stay up at night coming up with new and better algorithms for the autonomous mode
- You know the folks at Home Depot on a first name basis
- You would kinn for a chance to meet the Dean man

More to come, I'm sure....Happy ship day eve :)

Bill B.

You've graduated from high school and aren't on a team, but you still follow the season.


:rolleyes:

I love LJ.... though I don't get a chance to use it much.

--You come up with a creative scheme for your crate.
--You can no longer speak english because your brain's been fried from lack of speak. (One of my buddies said "I am stopping of the desk from moving.")
--You refuse to talk to the kids who joined the team but didn't do any work.
--You know that you're going to be one of the kids in the control station.
--You built the robot, but don't really care to drive it. (Hey, it's cuz I never got to PRACTICE with it until the night before ship.)
--You come home at midnight on a school night after FIRST and still manage to find the time to post on CD before going to shower and then bed.
--You've eaten more than half your meals for the past week at the work area.
--Those girls you've dubbed distractions have been around enough to befriend you.
--You can manage to build a robot and know most of the rules by heart, yet you can't understand drayage/shipping rules. (I.e., what to put on the crate.)
--Your teachers tell you they saw you working in the parking lot over the weekend.
--You pretend to be relieved that the bot's being shipped off, but realize that withdrawal is already setting in.

I really need sleep now.

<edit>Should have been *lack of sleep.* See what I mean? </edit>

When you sleep through your first two classes because of staying up too late.
When you kiss the robot goodbye.
When you start kicking people to get them out of the way.
When the robot runs into you multiple times in two days (it hurts a lot)
When you spend the night on the couch in the Robotics room.
When you decide it would be easier to stay up than to try to sleep and wake up again.

you know you're addicted to first when..
 

When you haven't gone to bed yet because you have to finish the wiring and hook up the pneumatics and make the robot lose 14 pounds before noon today but if someone said they'd do it for you and you could take a nap, you'd never let them because you love doing it!!!! I like caffeine a lot. :ahh:

...while dozing in your english class you have a nightmare about splines

You know you're addicted to FIRST when...
 

.....You feel bad for last year's robot because the new one is getting all the attention.


-April

... You skip all of your classes on the ship day to finalize the stuff that didn't get done last night.

... The most excited you've ever been about getting new clothes was when your new robotics appearal came in.

... You see someone has the ohm sign as their avatar, and do a double take because you thought you saw a retaining ring/C-ring!

... You fall asleep at your computer while waiting for the "You know you're addicted to FIRST when ..." there on Chief Delphi to load. :yikes:

- Katie

-You read this thread several times, and still have more things to add

-Your debate teacher tells you to dress up, so you wear your team shirt

-All your fashion discussions are either about team shirts, or saftey glasses.

-All of your buddies on your AIM buddy list say "Working on Robot", including yours

-You actually stay up late enough to see engineers start imitating muppets

-You start imitating muppets too...

-You reply to this post just to keep from thinking that the robot is really gone:(

--To avoid withdrawal, you search and find a new robotics project to start on, no matter how large or small. (Ours is rather small... we have a sumobot to mess with until competition.)

--You go over in your head what needs to be done and/or bought before regionals.

--You often wonder how the robot's doing.

--You can think of something to add, at least once a day.
(x2 if you're a rookie this year.)

...as you crate up the robot, you start spouting off the list of things left to do now to keep yourself from freaking out that you have nothing to do but maybe like school work (Luckily I've got an animation to start on for next year and an OI to design...)

I do strategy for my team.

For MONTHS after every regional, I see team numbers: prices, etc.

I could then remember the number, and recall the team's statistics: from what their fuctions where, to how they operated on the field.


Now THAT is scary.:p

I will probably see all that stuff for several more years/decades to come. It has been a year and I still remember vividly everything at all competition I went to.

... When you walking down the hallway in school and as you pass the numbered classrooms you think of the teams that correspond.

-- When your parents grounded you 2 weeks ago and you havn't seen them since then (gone to school to work on the robot before they wake up and get home after they go to sleep)
-- When you get withdrawl after not working on the robot for 12 hours
-- for thinking sleep is a luxury

-you stay up late because it feels wierd to go to bed early
-you go to a presentation on the F-35 and all you talk about is the robot
-the robot is the most expensive thing you've ever driven
eric

...When Your band director welds your instrument to fix it and you have a strange urge to file it.

...When you try to drill holes in yourself to lose weight

...you don't think a robot is done till it's full of holes
...you have been know to occasionally outburst and say "I'm a robot!" in the Ralph Wiggum voice
...You know why allowing a 200 pound teammate to dance a jig on a crate is a BAD thing

When you are on a first name basis with everyone in the accouting office because you have talked to them more often than you have talked with your teachers.

-If at 10:30 pm you finally have the robot packed up then go to Shari's to celebrate and you chug a jumbo milkshake and your friend tries to eat a whole lemon marang pie and only eats half and doesn't touch the marange.
-If the day after a major work day half the team sleeps and the other half works.
-If every finger on both your hands have been either gashed, smashed, burned or, blister due in some way to the robot.
-If you deburr your finger instead of your work piece(I slipped)
-If every minute you have off during school is spent in the shop on the robot.
-If you you have welded, made, fixed, or designed every part on the entire robot at least twice.
-If you have one person designated to search through the phone book calling every single restaurant and asking for donations of food each and every day.
-If you had to fix and or setup a milling machine, lathe, drill press, and welder so that you can make your robot.
-If you sit down and measure every part of the robot with a scale that is accurate to the 100th of an inch and obsess be cause two parts that are supposed to match are off by 5 100ths.
-If after the robot is shipped your mentor and you can't decide whether to make a cart, ommniwheels, a shift on the fly transmission, or a Continuously variable transmission.

Oh wait I think these things sound familiar...

Nahh!

Good luck to everyone at their regionals!!

if you program until ur fingers are too numb to type any more code :)

I know what those are like... especially deburring. Too many times. And it doesnt' stop bleeding if you're operating a lathe or a mill and you keep reopening it when you turn the things to make the stuff move..
And i can't weld, but I did the other stuff... :D

-- When you say I'm going to school see you tomorrow, and your parents understand what you're talking about.
-- When you mourn the death of the 2002 robot, when it has been sacrificed for bracket things. And there's actuallya paper that says "RIP......."
-- When you stay up till 3 in the morning because "that's what's normal."
-- You go into robotics re....sion (it's not regression or recession... I'm too stupid to think of the word... they use it when talking abotu drugs too) after robotics ends.
-- When you really start unintentionally start speaking Yoda-speak, because good syntaxically correct sentences form, you cannot

I think the word you are looking for is remission.

... when your wife and kids won't say "Robotics" but only refer to it as "the R word". :ahh:

You know your addicted to first when...
 

-You shout "ctrl-z ...ctrl-z" when you broke something(in the real world)

-You get in heated debates with people who believe the segway isnt a good idea.

-You almost cry @ invitationals because people aren't being nice to the robots

-Your previous mentors tell you that there proud of you for starting a team and it means the world to you

-The Mail Boxes Etc. guy knows all about FIRST and the animation and how imp. the package is to you

... when you begin to have a tear come to year eye as the robot is loaded into the crate, because you won't see him for over 40 days.
... when your American Government teacher lectures the class for being non-coherant, then speaks to you afterwards in hopes that you won't take offense, because he knows you haven't slept in a bed for 7 nights.
... when you enter a silent mode of depression, because you won't see your teammates for almost 45 hours.
... when you only have 2 friends outside of Robotics, and when you walk into the Band Room, they yell at everyone to leave the practice room so you can take a nap.


..... older... but good..... when your teammates discuss you on the way home from a competition.... and they have debates over wether or not you are really human.

...when you think in PBasic variables, using PWM outputs for limb motion, switches and sensor values for senses, and if-then statements for judgement.


...when before you open your eyes in the morning you're on ChiefDelphi oggling other team's robot pictures.


... when you feel guilty/pained when you have to drill holes in the robot to reduce weight- then make it up to him by polishing and buffing by hand.


... when you know every team's number, but can't remember your phone number.


... when you can't sleep at night because over the course of 6 weeks, you forgot what sleep was- and find yourself gazing at your shrine to FIRST which occupies an entire wall of your room.

So is everyone in FIRST in band? I feel left out. (Ah, that might be solved next year...)

I start to feel lonely when I don't see my robotics buds for twelve (waking) hours.

--everyone who attends on your team knows the Rocky Horror soundtrack because you've played it for three days straight-- even the kids who have never seen the movie.

--your mailbox is full of "Reply to post..." emails from the CD forums.

...When you get home day after shipping at three after school and freak out because you forgot to go to robotics.:eek:

......When at a party while playing trivial pursuit you get the card with Dean Kamen as the answer and you srceam out THATS MY GOD!!!!! and you dont get funny looks except for by your teammates cause you just gave away the answer
......you choose to have a party for your FIRST team over the rest of your friends(boyfriend included)
......you choose to go to FIRST instead of a Party cause its almost shipping and your just positive something will break that night
......the first thing you learn about your new b/f is that he used to do FIRST and you then yell at him for not still doing it
......your buddy list not only has your FIRST team on it but it has the surrounding towns FIRST teams on it, and most of the counselers from FIRST camp on it too...and your still waiting for s/n's from campers that you had (like libby kamen) over the summer
......you got a new s/n just so you would have FIRST in your s/n
......you wonder what you missed when your robot is packed up and shipped by 12 instead of 7 like your used too
:)

...when you realize that you can't explain to non team members what the feeling is like to crate a robot.(not a typo, I meant crate not create)

...when you laugh outloud at your desk reading this thread

...your dog growls at you when you come in at 2 am. And even after sniffing your hand isn't quite sure

...over 75% of the phone numbers on your cell phone are your team or someone elses team

...You realize that Dean IS changing society with FIRST and you love the fact that you are helping

…when you have three robots you assembled in the background and you can not figure out how to run a microwave
…your teachers no longer talk to you in front of the class because they are afraid you will embarrass yourself by talking about “that loser robotics thing” again
…you half expect food to appear on the table in the corner at regular intervals by itself even at home
…you tell time only by knowing the following hours: 9AM 12PM 5PM 10PM and 2AM and only because that is when you are hungry every day
…when you know the staff of at least three fast food places by name and face
…when you figure out if Home Depot has an item faster than the staff person who you asked
…when you think it is perfectly rational for your team to lock you in the crate so you can get the measurements perfectly on the inside braces of the door
…when you can tell types of motors by sound
…when you can tell if something isn’t pure Al by weight


also you know you have been on team 360 too long when

…you are afraid of
1. Mike on caffeine
2. Saint Christopher
3. The lady at Home Depot who mixes paint
4. Anybody who works at Lowes

…you know how to say the following things correctly
1. My spoon is too big (repeat)
2. I am a banana
3. DOYOUUUU!!! YOYOOOUUUU!!!!!
4. Tuesday is coming, did you bring your jacket?
5. I live in a giant bucket
6. Sprockets!
7. Can we use mirrors?
8. Silly smee burning people is wrong
9. TOUCH MY MONKEY
10. I am feeling fat and sassy
11. Do you want to see a movie?
12. Life is good

…you know what the following things/people are
1. A small screwdriver
2. Illhar
3. the magic white smoke
4. Chuckles
5. the autonomous dance
6. a tappa tappa
7. Rejected
8. the special chain company
9. dance of joy
10. the “dog monkey”
11. sanity buddy (bunny)
12. What we don’t tell Paul about

much too long...never too much.
 

when you think twice before replying to an Andy Baker post on CD with a correction/suggestion....

You're in Reno NV on business. There is a casino and a bunch of places to eat and you are sitting in a free internet area reading Chief Delphi and going to miss breakfast because of it. And you don't care.

when you respond to EVERYTHING with

"I'll _____ your _____ yesterday!"

:D

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2002/20020222l.gif

When you refer to anything hard as "Crunch Time"

When you have enough team and crew shirts to last a lifetime without wearing any of them twice.

- you know all off the spotlight quotes on this site without looking at the list
- Robotics withdrawl symptoms are so bad, the patch just isn't enough

How true this is...
When teachers ask how was your weekend? and you respond by explaining the whole game to them and pulling drawings, sketches, and pictures from your ____ (fill in the blank: pockets, binder, backpack... etc or all of the above.)

And if they still understand, explain to them last years game and what your robot did.

addicted
 

- when you drive around town day and night in the snow the last 5 days and nights before ship day with a bright blue 6 foot tall crate and all the tools in the back of the pickup, ferrying people around and looking for places to work because the school workshop is closed...and your boss asks "What's that in the truck, a porta-potty?"

-when you are still posting on this site after a week like that.

-when your older son goes to college after two years on the team but you also have an 8th-grader who has 4 more years left on the team...:ahh:

when you realize the price for real film instead of using your digi cam for robotics pictures would have totalled double the price for your digi cam

when you're the guy uploading robotics photos and can't see the end of the list of the photos being uploaded...

when you realize you have over 800 photos for robotics within 2 months

http://gallery.litespeed.ca/album07

when someone tells you that you look sleepy...
and you reply " Sleep? what's that?"

when you can tell the exact size of a bolt by just smelling it.

when someone calls you a "nut", u wonder what they mean by calling you that.

when things don't fit, the hammer is your best friend

when you can't feel the angle bracket (or nuts,bolts, screws, etc.) you've been sitting on for the last 10 hrs.

realize that the cup of water you have been drinking has a shade of yellow... and then shrug and continue drinking

when you become pleasantly amused when someone says "po tae to"

when you realize your socks are coloured silver from the aluminum shavings

when you start naming the hacksaw

when your backpack for school contains nothing but tools.

when your teacher asks for the answer of a calculus question and you tell him how his desk is missing a bolt.

when the pizza store/donut store no longer charges you tax.

...When you write a tribute to last year's robot after you had to cannibalize it for L-brackets.
...When you cry every time you read the tribute.

...When you have a very confused look on you face when someone in math class says, "3/10ths" as an answer, and say out loud, "don't you mean 300 thou???"
...when you think that an oily, ragged, smelly drop cloth is a suitable blanket while briefly napping during an all-nighter when the batteries are charging

...when you burst into the school lunch room screaming "SHE DRIVES!! SHE DRIVES!!! AND SHE IS SOOOOO SEXY!!!" three hours before ship and nobody at your school is surprised.


lauren

...you take apart your mom's brand new toaster, the day after build, and when it doesn't work again, hit it with a hammer, and use duct tape to fix it

...when your team says, randomly "duct tape, zip ties, and industrial strength velcro!"

...when you go to physics class, and half of the females there understand when you make a karate-chop motion with your arm, while making pneumatics noises, because they are on the team too

...when you look at a team mate who has just announced that they are dating a non-firster and start to explain to them "nonono you don't get it. they'll be lonely during the build. you have to end it now, and find someone who will understand..."

...when you would never even remotely consider dating a non-firster

...when you have to say goodbye to your boyfriend during march and april because he is working as a crew member at at least two other regionals

...when epoxy has become the inhalant of choice on the team, and results in conversations involving much giggling and sexual inuendos

...when wetzel calls on jon's cell to tell him our team mate is in the chat room, while we are at home watching 101 dalmations with my little sister...

...when you start saying, without even realizing it (and having to have other people point it out) "Zip tape and Duct ties"

That would be so cool!

-.- When you say the above 10x really fast, and people still know what you're saying

-You have dreams about finishing parts, and then get mad when you wake up and they aren't done
-you and your friend spend your class talking about first stuff (redesignign, strategy, management) during a lecture
-your history notes are full of robot designs

--even after your bot is finished, you still look for things you could put on the robot during the 12-hour pre-competition build.

--you proudly proclaim to your friends "robotics=life."

--your dad tries to get you look at the drivetrain on a battlebot and you refuse to watch.

--you don't want to miss school because it's important for you to be at every build session.

oh yeah....uh, wait, yeah, we never did this :rolleyes: :D


...you've heard bill beatty sing!

you know you're addicted to FIRST when..
 

Re: you know you're addicted to FIRST when..
 

I can attest to both of these. Monday, 9am I was out in Ypsi because they had the day off for presidents day. My school didn't though :ahh:
Well, we had a nice blizzard that night so I stayed at a teamates house. (I have a 45 min drive home when the weather is good). So I wasn't at school tuesday either.

Monday & Tuesday
School: 0 Hours
Robotics: 23 Hours

when both of your computers at home break and you cant get online from school but you still find a way to post on delphi

-When your studying for a test and suddenly 'team building' exercises pop into your head
-Your entire life is a recruitment effort
-When you spend the two days off from school because of the huge blizzard working on the robot instead of playing in the snow (actually I played in the snow from 10pm to 3am so I wouldn't miss anything... college students took over the streets of Boston!)

when you watch a movie in physics and say
'that is the COOLEST thing EVER' and mean it
b/c it reminds you of one of the games

*when your engineers give you the access code to the building-wide PA system and you start singing and giggling on it...because it's late enough that only robotics people will hear

*when you start comparing scratches

*when you get unreasonably ecstatic because the kids you mentor are happy because they just got dean to sign their shirts

*when you haven't spoken to your roommate in days because you haven't both been conscious and in the room at the same time

*when you have a category of mp3s called "robotics music"

*when you assign much added significance to programming terms

My teacher doesnt let me miss class!!!!!
What can i do to break him in?

FIRST Widows
 

When I found out my brother accepted my challenge and started helping team 1164 in New Mexico, my first words to my wife were:

"Should we get a sympathy card for Pam? She's now a FIRST widow."

I really appreciate all of the sacrifices our families make to allow us to pursue this passion. It does get out of hand sometimes but I think FIRST is much more productive than so many other addictive passions.

Hahaha, we've done that before!

Student A: "Aww, look at this scratch!"

Student B: "Man, this one is bigger. I got this one from the gearbox last year. You know, before we filed the edges down?"

Student C: "You think that's bad? Here's my scar from when I put a screwdriver through my hand right before one of our matches - and I drove in that match too!"

Student D: "Ok, well here's where I almost cut my thumb off on the lathe."

Student A: "Oh, I remember that - was that the time you put electrical tape and paper towels around the cut and kept working?"

Student D: "One of the times, yeah."

All true stories!! :yikes:

- Katie

when u learned that some computers dont show team updates all the time...

when u drive to school for 45mins each way to go to that school because u moved to a new school district that didnt have FIRST.

when its the end of feb and ur still tired

when ur falling 1/2 of ur class's because u quit doing hw beacuse of lack of sleep.

when u can tell someone that on valentines day u worked on a robot until 4am.

when u volunteer at a lego league event and they tell u to dress in character, u dress in all denim

when u take ur robot to a middle school and break a shelf but are more worried about the robot

when u take the robot to a convention and talk about it as almost human.

:ahh:

For teams using aluminum extrusions, such as 80/20:

* When you find drop-in T-Nuts at the bottom of your washing machine...

* ... and you know exactly where off the robot those drop in T-nuts came from...

-=- Terence

When you want to tap the holes on everything you touch just so the screw goes in easier.

When you try to make a quilt for a school project and end up thinking up ways to integrate the footpedal from the sewing machine into the robot controls.

OT

When I was sewing that quilt the quilt dragged the tablecloth up with it, and I sewed the tablecloth to the quilt. Shouldn't have been thinking of the robot.

...when you are at school 24 hours out of 48 in a weekend

when you have slept over wherever you work on the robot

haha... have that beat!.....
.... .... when you look forward to 'move in day' everyear. - the day when certain 'freaks' literally move into the shop for the last week of build season.