You've programmed your cell phone's welcome message to say:
"FIRST is life!
<insert team name here>"

My dad called me crazy when he saw it. :-)

Now if only I could find a FIRST operator logo...

When this tread hit 200 posts and you have read every one of them and you enjoy rereading them.

When suddenly you are quite color cordinated and you don't know why. Wait, yes I do...everything I now own is MOEgreen and you like it that way.

When your team gets together outside of meetings and wear their safety goggles to whereever it is you are going. Sometimes saying this: "We build robots"

You use above line "We build Robots" as a pickup line.

That line actually works because you've said it to someone from First *never seen this happen*

You have a nightmare about Moe Sticks attacking you and then make more of them because you find it thrilling.

When you get a vanity license plate with you team or robot name on it or some other FIRST reference.

When you realize just how empty your life is without FIRST, and so you endlessly surf ChiefDelphi in search of a quick fix.

when your name's yangotang

No, your name was Yangotang before you got involved with FIRST.
When you learn PBasic in 10 minutes because the team's programmer didn't show up to a meeting.

when WPI sends you a letter because of your standardized test scores asking about college and your first reaction is "190? What do they want?"

someone at my school has that....they are from NH and it says:
FRSTRLZ or something like that....and they have a bumper sticker that says, my other car is a FIRST robot....still trying to figure out who this kid is...I NEED TO MEET HIM OR HER...


hahaha i just thought of a great one:

-when you have a midterm on the day of the regionals, and you want to go home to watch them, so you email your professor at the beginning of the semester and say your in a wedding and ask if you can take the midterm at another time....and the teacher believes you!!!


hahahahaha!

I know last year, at Nationals, 422 handed out bumper stickers that said, "I drive my other car with joysticks." Mine's hanging on my corkboard at home! :)

- Katie

Dude wait, to you see my safety glasses! They look exactly like sunglasses witha flair of nerd!!!! I still got my photo from Bash@the Beach in them with my baggy pants and backwards hat (VT BABY!!!) thugging it as HP ( I had been the back up backup previously but the normal HP and backup were in Florida!)

heck yeah I did! if I had to hear that moe jingle one more time.... (no offense to moe, but after too long outside of competition.... i get angry :D)

yes. elyse, jr. will love FIRST. :) hehe

also..

..when you go to menards in search of nice safety glasses that will look good with all of you fave team shirts. (luckily, my team and wo-bots are primarily red and white)
..after a competition, you have about all of the other teams buttons or other giveaways from that competition

The sad thing... it's so true...
The sadder thing is... I said "my backpack is too heavy" and a friend and i both thought of that, and then of coruse i had to say it.

- when your history teacher comes over 30 minutes into class and says "it's okay, go to sleep" and you sleep for the next hour of class. And you're not in trouble.
- when you ask your teacher for an extension, but the teacher beats you to the reason (obviously, robotics).
- when you know that you can go in the LSC, up the stairs, across the skyway, down teh stairs, across a hall, down stairs and down another hall just to get back in the room cuz you got locked out of the building without a cell phone
- when you can talk in if, then statements.
- you do homework in if, then statements
- you try to rewrite a scene from othello using programming language, but your teacher won't let you (it was a "creative assignemtn, i see nothing wrong with it")
- when you begin saying "whoa, your shirts are the same color of color!" and it's what you meant to say. and then you realize that you're stupid...
- when you are officially not allowed to touch layout dye, because you made 10 of the 12 plates on teh drive gearboxes red. and not for layouting. all red.
- when you've gotten so used to going to bed at 2:30 or later that even after 2 weeks of normality, you still cant' go to bed before 1. (which is why i'm still up).
- youve gotten used to going without breakfast, without lunch (fell asleep during "lunch"), without very much dinner ("what? you ate the pizza and you didnt' tell the machinists?" -- luckily didnt' happen that often). and 2 weeks later, you still don't eat. which is really bad for me, combined with lack of sleep... w00t!

i gotta get back to my essay, *grin*

lol, our team's engineers got our safety glasses on their own without us. Just like true dillard style (our school) our glasses are tinted. They're great for outdoors...but..not so great for the machine shop.. :p

-When you look at what number you winamp play list is on and know the team number off the top of you head, and then you start to associate that song with the team.

...when you spend at least 3 hours a day on something related to FIRST.

when you are tempted to cry cause you can't watch the webcasts (our LAN is GRRRRR!) and your friend (who is not in robotics) says "uhm.. you're not missing anything":(

when, while writing your physics term paper, you send an email every few minutes asking "please tell me what's going on!"

when you're writing your term paper you find the CD board irresistable because you know it will have smth exciting about the regionals

you stay up til 1 am scouting and typing the robot inventory when you should be working on your term paper

...heh, maybe i should go write that term paper, eh? ;)

During fundraising and organization time, I spend twice that each day. During build season, ditto, before the regionals, ditto, after the competition, ditto... I guess I am a little addicted :D

When you boarded a bus with your teammates this morning at 7:15 am and got home at 6 pm

(Our team went and volunteered at Habitat for Humanity, went back to motorola, had lunch, and (some of us) stayed to watch the cleveland regional via NASA satalite video feed.

- All of your nightmares involve transmission problems
- You wonder how they built the pyramids without 80/20, zip ties and duct tape
- All of your clothes are in your team colors
- You can't see your walls because they're covered in team buttons.
- You won't buy furniture that isn't "some assembly required"
- You've taken apart everything in your room at least once.
- You tried to build a flux capacitor
- You wonder if NASA has dilithium yet.
- You think your home should have a machine shop.
- If Mountain Dew has made your blood green.
- The only number a woman has given you was a team number
- You think the inventor of duct tape should be a saint.

A wise man once said to me: Do you know why everyone wants to give you their two cents? Because noone likes carrying around a lot of pennies.

...when you needed a project since the robot is gone so you dragged all your furniture out of your room and spent all night repainting.
...when you needed another project now that your room is repainted so you offered to repaint a 900 sq ft room just for kicks.

....You're SURE everything done on battlebots could have been done by your team ten times better

....A Honda Civic is nothing compared to your souped up Segway

....There are no room numbers in your school, you call them by their FIRST name

....You try to get as many exhibition as possible so you can go to less school

....You don't answer the phone because you might lose the train of thought on your CD post

....When you say "Do you want to the movies" and your friend responds accordingly, and then you both start screaming at eachother.

good question.....

when you're bored and you want to go to school just to see your team mates and build a robot.....:D

when your mcdonalds meal costs 5.72, and you find exactly 72 cents in change, hand the guy at the window 10.72, realize that's your team number, and confuse the hell out of the mcdonalds guy. :D

^ hahahaha...thats a great one!

-When you're willing to do anything just to get to the robot...including driving 2 hours everyday to where your robot is being held during build:D
-Whenever it's 10:37 AM or PM and I realize that's my team number...everyone has to tell me to shut up because apparently, I keep saying "1037! 1037! Look that's my team number." Okay...I'll shut up now....;)

...when you're eagerly waiting for your first regional competition to come by counting down how many days are left.

...when you're frustrated on a program you are trying to create and can't find out why something went wrong.

Fast Food
 

Not sure if this had been said, and I know I mentioned it last year. "You know you're addicted to FIRST when... you go to a fast food resturaunt and match your order number to a FIRST team."

Similar to that:

When, at work, you count out people's change and can relate that to a FIRST team number ...

Also, when you get so bored, you start to write these numbers down! ;)

- Katie

Ok, so I was bored at work on Saturday ...

...when you notice that the highest room number in your hotel is your team number. (happened)
...when you celebrate the date that most resembles your team number. (happened)
...when you know to what exponent 7 has to be raised to equate to your team number. (7^3)
...when you know your team number in binary and hex.
...when most of your conversations (or posts) revolve around your team number.

-You go to PE and when the jocks yell at you for not making the serve in vollyball, you think they are perfect canadates for FIRST.
-Your teachers come to the competitions to see why you have been missing so much school, and they say it's their proudest moment to be part of the staff of that school
-You connect to other FIRST students faster than regular ones.

when you treat customers at your job wikked nice when their oder comes to your team number, or their change.
When you *yoink* things because they have ur team number on them . . .

When you walk through the school parking lot, and recognize parking pass numbers as FIRST team numbers.

Quite frankly, you know your addicted to FIRST when you *yoink* things period.

-when you download the music you heard at competition
-when you try and make words out of team nmbers on telephone keypads

hahah and plus all the other 16 pages you guys wrote

When you spend hours looking for nuances of the number 343.

When you write a song regarding:
FIRST
ROBOTIX
YOUR TEAM
TEAM MEMBERS
OTHER TEAMS

((i'm sorry, i don't know y that's all in caps. it was ment to be only FIRST))

when you carry a full set allen wrenches with you at all time because you never know when you'll end up at robotics.

I used to know the exact order at taco bell that equaled 4.61 with tax..but not i am boycotting taco bell so it doesn't matter...

You know your addicted when you notice your PO box at work is the same as your team #

when you're taking notes for an english research paper,
you don't italicize you act put the html form of [ i ] and [ / i ]
instead

when you sit and make up stories (novel like)
about FIRST and robotix in class
with your friends who aren't even
in you robotix team
....
I will get it published!
:D

- When you wear your safety glasses to school
- When you start dancing at regionals when there's no music playing
- When you talk about it so often your parents and smaller siblings actually start to get it...
- When you start an arguement that's simply repeating what the other person says. ( You're stupid. You're stupid!)

One of my friends carries around a set of bent needle nose pliers around in his backpack all day. His excuse: "You never know when ya need em." And, remarkably enough, he isn't even in robotics.

...when in every one of your classes you notice that you do something related to robotics.
...when you post messages on Chief Delphi every day :D

...
 

when your leatherman becomes more of an important accessory than shoes... and you worry about flying to nationals b/c you will have to pack and check the various hardware you are accustomed to carrying around with you. :(

dreams
 

I've been having dreams about robots alot lately. I am the driver for team #171 and the night before the last day of competition in St. Louis, I had a dream the we made it to the finals, but we got beat for the second year in a row by the Baxter Bomb Squad (#16). But my dream was wrong, we made it to the finals and won the St. Louis Regional. We never played Baxter at all.
And my parents informed me this morning that I was sleep walking last night. They say that I walked into their room at 3:00AM and kept crying, "My robot won't go up the ramp." HaHaHaHaHaHa, I think its really funny. Its taken over my life.
Everyday since I've gotten back from St. Louis, my Algebra 2 class has done nothing but talk about the competition and the highest score possible. I'm OBSESSED!:D

-when your whole entire family does FIRST....lol
(mom, dad, siblings, and yourself....thats love right there...family bonding)

...when you're in a computer class with nothing to do except to post messages on Chief Delphi.

Your pencil holder on your desk next to your monitor is your first weld :) above your monitor is your first oil painting ( of nats at epcot), to the side of your monitor hangs your medal, and finally on your montior stands your robot proud, wings spread- posing for it's next painting ;)

Re: dreams
 

wow ... you DO need to join that however many numbered step program that was in a thread here a while ago...

I've had dreams, but never to that extant :eek:

~ when you worry about the psychological damage you might
be inflicting on your robot when you put it in it's box crate for
so long.
~ when you're ready to dedicate a room of your house as a storage place for the old robots

Re: Re: dreams
 

haha, I can one up you

~ when you've placed an old robot in your backyard shed as a storage place, and you check up on it in the middle of the night to make sure its not rusted or anything

Stephen

when you're walking through the halls of school and you come upon a crowd and want to yell "robot comming through, robot!" so you can get through them.

When you miss the competition so much that you're going to a regional you aren't even competing in to watch and scout (UTC this weekend) :D

hehe... me too, except I'm going to Annapolis to 'brain suck' before my first Regional. :D

LOL, me too. Im going to UTC just to have fun and then off to New York for us next week!!! :D

i was going to go to UTC this weekend as well....

but it think it makes me more addicted when...I'm out of high school....in college and my team isn't even there at all...hahahaha :)

I thought of a rather somber one...

When your worries about the possibility of an upcomming war leans more on if the championship will be cancelled than whether it's morally right or wrong or the reprecussions that it will have to the state of peace in the world(which will be severe IMO).

When you can remember the names of the robots you've help build, but not the names of your children.

when whenever anyone says "stack" within earshot you immediately perk up and start listening.

When you drive the robot so hard at a competition that you mangle a piece of angle aluminium to the point it must be replaced and you put said angle piece on your shelf.

Or you have the frame of your teams first robot in your bedroom (CNCboy461 has the old robots frame in his room)

You randomly shout your teams cheers in class
LETS ALL GO NUTS ROBOTS ROBOTS!

You memorize your team number in binary: 111001101
And Hex: 1CD

You print off the consolidated rule book, and then you try to drill through the paper because you don't have a three-hole punch.

NOTE: This is coming from an adult volunteer

You know when you are addicted to first when...

You avoid answering your cell phone for the entire three days because you are busy making pit announcements....even when it is your wife.

You avoid callng back customers at night because you need to get to sleep early so you can be sharp the next day.

You look for ways to annoy that "Follow the rules woman" at the event who does not like the fact that you are not sticking to the stricted interpretation of the "Guidelines for announcers".

You lose your voice from 3 days of Pit Bossing and don't care one damm bit.

Best,

Danimal
Pit Boss NE Regionals
'01, '03

Those Stix RULE
 

Today was Annapolis regional. We had a blast, but in our semifinal matches, we messed up some of our stabilizer rods, and that being my function to fix, ran off to make more, beings we ran out of spares. Well I took Joe3 with me, and we had no view of a tv or the field, but knew exactly what was going on. You might ask how, well its easy, the faster and harder and louder the moe stix were, the better we normally do.

So Joe is looking for a hacksaw blade and im grabbin a file, and all we hear is a roar from the crowd accompanied by loud banging of moe stix. This signified that our autonomous program worked, and then from there on out we knew we were doing good, 'cause our team never stopped the banging from then on out.

Bottom line, You know you're addicted to first when you can successfully judge a match with MOE in it by the sound of the Stix.

When you wish you could be more of a geek and speak binary and take classes like AP Physics and Pre-Calculus...

Am I the only one that's not like that? o.0

While on a scouting mission to the Annapolis Regional... you take the scary shuttle ride in, walk into the arena... and just through the doors:

DEAN KAMEN!!!! ... you are so 'star struck' that you are standing next to him, your jaw drops... and you have no idea what is going on. Finally your parents 'push' you enough to walk up to him and shake his hand and have him autograph your shirt. (I think I am going to get that shirt framed!)

*... thanks evuilsh, wouldn't of had the guts to walk up to Dean by myself!

You think that's sad? I have sort of the same thing...except there I can never make a digital clock say 360 so I just get excited at four instead.

When one of your friends says she is fairly sure she could take the robot apart and put it back together who isn't on the team...and hasn't seen the thing

When even you realize more stories than not start with "one time at robotics"

When you say "the team" any everybody tries to change the subject

When as you drive by you put house numbers and teams together

When you are reading Shakespeare and every time you pause you note the line number...and match that with a team

When you are done reading and check the page number so you know where to begin again you remember that team too

When you have trouble sleeping because you don't hear any saws or other loud machines running

When you pick up broken things in school and tell nobody in particular why they broke and how to fix it

When you go home with the team's safety glasses on top of your head and don't notice

When you have more washers in your pockets than coins

When you file Al see the shavings all over the floor and think "glitter!"

When you see fireworks and think of the sparks from welding grinding or cutting steel.

When you absentmindedly put washers in a vending machine or attempt to pay for something with them

You have 1000 posts on Chief Delphi. :D

...when you have a team of 7 people taking the robot apart in 10 minutes just to paint the chassis red. :yikes:

...when you go out and play laser tag with two other robotics teams. (You know who you are) ;)

...when you're going to play bowling with those same teams in a few days even though you're not that good at bowling. :rolleyes:

...when you have more posts than any of your team members put together on Chief Delphi :D

Soccer3Ace: dude i just wrote an essay and the word count is 238
Soccer3Ace: wahooooooooooooooooooooooo


thats when you know your addicted to FIRST....

When you reconize who's cell phone is ringing (Coach's, Mentor's, Engineer's, or College Student's) by their ring and the time of day...if you can actually determine the time of day...or night...all while you're dozing off under a bin structure:D

When you suggest to your fellow robotix team member
to 'weld' fish liner (nylon string) in physics class
b/c you don't feel like tying a knot
......
and then when you DO weld the nylon sting
w/ a lighter ...
((this idea comes to you when you've haven't slept for 2 days, literally))
and it says! holding 200 g weight!
woooho! just don't tell our teacher we did this:p

-- When you rack up a huge text msg bill on your phone because you've been counting down the hours til regional with your teammates by sending a "T-minus <hours>" message every hour from ship to competiton.

-- You walk in late at night and your parents call the cops cause they dont recognize you

-- When you have the entire kickoff video's audio encoded in mp3 and downloaded to your player.

-- When you listen to the whole thing and can visualize the video as it plays.

-- When you sit in the pit catatonic with a laptop, staring at the screen mumblng "bad auto bad!".

[EDIT]
Oooh some more just came to me

-- When you see a car go flying down his street and you say to yourself "Wow he's got his PWMs at 254!"

-- When you get in your uncle's new car and your first thought is "Where are the joysticks?"

-- When you can sing all of 99 Red Balloons in both English and it's original German (99 Luftballoons).

-- When you can tell your team every score and ranking for the entire regional without looking at the scores once.

-- When you meet Dean and he says "YOU AGAIN?"

-- When your car abttery dies but you quickly jury-rig up the spare robot batteries you happeend to have and are abck o nthe road in five minutes.

-- When you finally find a way to tip the Segway.

-- When you've learned to hate the phrase "We'll fix it in programming"

-- When you bring backpacks full of mountain ew cans and ice packs to every competition.

-- You start telling people "I might have to get medieval on your heinie"

-- When you see signs of insanity as signs of good health.

-- When you can recite the entire robot program from memory.

-- When you do so randomly and frequently.

-- When you try a disguise to ride the Segway again.

-- When that works.

-- When you and friend build an entire sound system in his backpack in twenty minutes, then walk around proclaiming to be the DJ-in-a-bag team

-- When you keep adding things to this list just so that stupid "You've posted to recently" msg has a chance to resolve itself.

-- When you give up and just edit your old post

[/edit]

... When that 1/8" silver of 20x20x extrusion looks so cute, you decide to make a charm out of it for a necklace (it turned out gorgeous, by the way!!)

... When it's your spring break and everyone is talking about going to Mexico, Alaska, Florida, Cancun etc., and you are more excited than them because you're going all the way to Chicago - for a FIRST regional!

- Katie

When you get excited over your calculus teacher mentioning washer during a lesson and you ask, "What kind of washer? Lock washer, Belleville washer, 7/16" washer, 3/8" washer, etc. etc."

When said calculus teacher draws a cylindrical shell, asks what it looks like, and you resond specifically with, "A nylon spacer!"

When he says that he got the same reaction out of his other calculus class with a few robotics girls in it as well.

When you relate the dates that assignments and projects are due to the date of a regional or championship: "My test is two days before SVR."

when, if anyone ever says "stack," you perk up and turn towards it as if they had said your name

when your teammates refer to you as the human reciprocating saw because of your ability to cut anything on the fly without removing it from the robot

...when you're a "Chief Delphi Addict" like me. (Hint: My sweatshirt had that message on the back at the GLR. So if you saw that, you saw me.)

...when one of your team members hands the announcer the sign that says "Dip your bot in the Creek. Go 1037!!!"

...when your team starts the wave, the congo line, etc.

...when you're just having fun.

( So you were there too? Well then, a great big AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! from team 862!)

-When you know that you can tear apart and reassemble a Bosch 3360 1/2 drill motor with your eyes closed.... You know because you tried.

-You know the guts of your robot by touch, including wires, because you've had to make so many repairs, and are tired of taking off the top.

-a Thunderchicken doesn't sound all that wierd to you...

-Your conversations about your weekend involve more numbers than some of your math assignments.

-You can't talk, you have no voice.

- When your thinking of cancelling your prom date because its the same weekend as a robotics competition

- When you cant talk but still cheer for your team and others no matter what

- When 8 foot poles of bamboo don't seem out of the ordinary

- When you can pretend to be your robot

*shuffles forward "POPPED BREAKER" starts turning in a circle "Breaker reset" starts walking up ramp "OH NO" falls on back*

- When you volunteer for inspection and run to your pit whenever your finished with an inspection just to check on progress

- When you dance a jig because everyone else is doing the cha cha slide and you don't like the cha cha slide

- When others cheer for your jig :D

when, over a five day period you spend 80+ hours in a NASA engineer's garage during a snow storm; freezing because the garage isn't heated, using a forge as a space heater and almost dying of carbon monoxide posining. Not only that, but enjoying it the whole time.

...when you're a rookie team trying to win All Star Rookie and everything, including the wiring, is extremely organized, 3 part time engineers, etc. but it ends up you didn't win.

-when you read all of these posts and are still interested in reading more
-when you are already counting down the days till next season

Your an Addict when
 

You know your addict

When blood, sweat, and gears are all you have left
When you answer questions like this all the time.
When rookies try to their hardest and that isn't enough,
When you miss the the thousand screaming fans at a regionals
When you campaign for a varsity letter for robotics.

...when you plan your wedding around robotics season.

...when your search for a honeymoon site starts with the list of FIRST regionals dates and locations.

...when you forego the traditional wedding march for "3, 2, 1, GO...da-da-da-da------da-da."

...when you have a robot roll the white runner down the aisle (in autonomous mode, as soon as your Bride steps on the mat)

...when you say "I graciously accept your choice of me as an alliance partner" instead of "I do"

...when your wife understands all this, and loves you anyway.

when you refresh your profile on chief delphi 60 times a minute to see if there are new posts.


when you bug the ppl you like the least on your robotics team b/c they are the ones who will know if you are going to nationals first

When you sit in this thread hitting refresh till someone uploads the pics!

[edit] which turned out to be NOT cool for the site itself... sorry brandon... [/edit]

That is the best one yet John

Cory

When you agree with ^

When you reply to 2 and a half month old posts because you think it presents a cool problem.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=16386

When you dream about programming solutions.

[Edit]
Beat me to it.
[Edit/]

When you've named that set of allen wrenches, and claim that you have the one set of allen wrenches to rule them all.

My wife would have killed me.
Messily.:D

When you can look at a broken drill and can say,"I can fix that. All I need is a replacement chuck."
When you start taking home vacuum cleaners that were thrown out for the impellers.
When you understand why I need an impeller.

~When your non FIRST friends actually understand the significance of build, robots, and know your flight times for Houston... :)

~When your pit orquestra director doesn't knows why you're 45 minutes late to rehersal... and says nothing because he already assumes it must be robotics related... (Bowling with teams 245 and 201) :rolleyes:

~When your little brother builds a mini replica of the Stack Attack field with legos...yet you had no idea that he knew the dimensions...:p

-When you are on the computer and your parents ask "Are you on that $@#$@#$@#$@# robotics site?"

-You don't want to find the angle of accent of a triangle on paper, but you would willingly do it to the Stack Attack field.

-You wear your FIRST shirt when you go out of town to see if other teams there will see you.

-You ask your principle to make the school Segway friendly.

-You think about girls every 6 seconds, but robots every 2.

-Despite the fact you play video games, do homework, go to amusement parks, and go out with friends, you still spend an un-holy amount of time on robotics.

-Your ranking for collages is based on local FIRST teams.

-Your PDA has the whole Stack Attack rules on it in PDF form.

Wow, talk about harsh. Anyway...

...when your team captain tells you that he's looking for a song titled "SCREAM" on Kazaalite. Then later, you even do it yourself. :D

...when you're asked by your parents... "who are you talking to?" and you reply... "it's a message board" every single time you are seen on CD.

...when your optical mouse all of a sudden doesn't work while trying to post a message. (Did happen once)

-When you can correctly score a match long before the judges can and with complete accuracy (happened during most matches at New York :D )

-When you find yourself supposed to be researching a project at school and somehow end up on the Chief Delphi Forum

Yeah.. I'd have to agree with ya' Scott.

FIRST is responsible for my procrastinator lifestyle when it comes to chosing between school work or workin on FIRST stuff. LOL

When all you want to do is watch the CD forums all night long, even on weekends

happens to me - everytime - without fail - everytime

When you are on Chief Delphi every hour.

Not sure if I mentioned this...

--you avoid this thread because you're too lazy to unsubscribe from it, and you don't want to receive all the emails.