Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

So, I'm down here at the University of Michigan for Band Week, and already, in just the Trumpet section, I've met three former FIRST people. One was from 226, one from 240, and one all the way from 374 in Anchorage, Alaska. Apparently, there are quite a few FIRSTers in the Michigan Marching Band that I haven't met, also. This got me thinking about something. Where have you met FIRST people in odd places? By odd places, I mean anywhere that you wouldn't consider a FIRST-related activity. So, what are your stories? They don't have to be much, but I think it would be cool to get an idea of where FIRSTers are in the "outside world."

I met a "First person" in a barber shop once.

One day at my post office I was wearing a t-shirt from my freshman year on team 93 and this guy asked me if I had been in the FIRST program. I started talking with him and found out he was one of the original mentors for my team, however he retired and left by the time I had arrived on the team. I just found it amusing and neat that in an area of 250,000 people, and maybe 500 having come in contact with he team, and two alumnus come across each other and are able to connect because of FIRST. Definitely one of my cooler experiences as a result of the program.

met a guy while camping at hart springs, whose brother had been the team captain for a miami team (not sure of number)

Waitress saw the FIRST logo on my shirt and asked if I worked with a team. She had never been on a team, never been to an event, didn't know anyone on a team, never saw a TV show about FIRST... so I asked how she knew about FIRST.

She is studing marketing, and one assignment was to pick out a cool logo they knew nothing about, and then research it and report back to the class what it ment and who it was for. She has picked out the FIRST logo cuz it was so cool looking, and then had to explaine FIRST's mission to an entire marketing class.

We're everywhere...

Sadly all summer I have been away as a camp counselor over the summer at a boy scout camp so I havn't been able to check up on the site (its been too long). However, while at camp it was about half way through the summer before I realized that during one of the nasty t-storm a fellow counselor was wearing a FIRST jacket :yikes: and for the rest of the summer we would always talk about FIRST in our spare time! :cool:

I was at Purdue the other day and I saw a kid wearing a 2002 OCCRA shirt, but I didnt bother to ask him what team he was from..

The other time this summer I saw someone was when I was in Indianapolis at a mall I saw some kid wearing a 2003 IRI shirt

I was at the In-n-Out right by UCLA's campus and saw a kid whose team I made a call against when I was ref'ing at the Chatsworth scrimmage. Though he was wearing his team tshirt, I would have recognized him anyway because I remember him not being too happy about being penalized. Apparently the team is located +1 hour away from my school so I don't know what he was doing there but I found it funny (not to mention my friends also found it really funny I was hiding from him...hey, he seemed like the type who would hold a grudge about the DQ).

Btw, all of you people who live outside of California and don't have In-N-Out are soooo deprived.

Well honestly I did not meet the person but when my family and I drove down to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on the last full week of july through the first week of August we stopped at a restaursant called T-Bones... When I got out of the car I noticed that the SUV next to us had some that autodesk passed out hanging from the rearview mirror... I went to the back of the SUV and saw a team bumber stick it looked like... I forget where the licence plate was from but I bet it was someone that was at nationals...

I met one of 357's members while taking the SAT at good ol' Wissahickon..

a team mate and i were taking the SATs at another high school in the district. we bumped into a member from 115 (i believe) wearing a t-shirt from championship 2002. there was a WRRF meeting later that day, however, the 115 guy said he wasn't planning on attending.

in the beginning of august, my boyfriend and i went to play laser tag, and ran into "aonic" of team 1072.

at SVR 2003, i noticed someone on the leland team who looked familiar. upon speaking to eachother, we realized that we went to the same church, but had never really met (it's a big church...).

When I went to National Latin Convention this year at Trinity University, I wore my robotics shirt one of the days. I had a decent amount of people come up to me about it and we started talking. To think...Robotics geeks are also Latin Nerds...

I saw someone part of FIRST in a casino.

On the plane to Nationals this past year, I noticed the lady across the aisle from me had a FIRST business card sticking out of the folder she was carrying. Looking closer, I noticed she was wearing a FIRST vest. When the plane landed, one of my mentors and I started talking to her and it turned out that she was one of the FLL game coordinators/planners/whatever-you-want-to-call-'ems. We wound up talking about the possibility of my team hosting an edu-robotics competition sometime in the future. It was cool. :)

- Katie

I was walking around Disney, and someone was wearing one of the shirts they were selling at nationals at Epcot.. so I started talking to him, found out he was a mentor on a team somewhere in the mid-west, and was on vacation in Florida... I thought it was pretty cool.

Either Race 212 ,or Ramtech 59

I ran into one of the engineers on a team we mentored in the local Home Depot. I just can't image what he would be doing there in the off-season. ;)

Well, I was at an anime convention, AFO, and I ran into someone who was on Team Pink 3 years ago, that was really odd, he was like "Before they were Team Pink" and stuff, and he started to talk to me about it...Then one day in Fashion Square I ran into one of our Engineers at Subway, whicfh we constantly ate during the season...

hmm.... as I think I mentioned in another thread.. oddest place.. was in the local Hooters.

I am interested to see if anyone (besides 222 ;)) will be on campus this fall.

Vivek and I (both Harker Robotics people) saw Jim and 2 other (presumably 258) FIRST people at Valley Faire.

and then 30 seconds later saw Akshay from MVRT.

Hawaii
 

This summer, while waiting for our 8:15 pm flight back to Arizona (which did not leave until 2:10am) I noticed a girl from team 460 (Xavier College Prep) sitting with her parents. We spent a few great hours explaining FIRST to an ever growing crowd.

Ken Loyd
Team #64
The Gila Monsters

i see lots of first people, But i seek them out

Heh. Actually, that was Bill.

i meant to say that. sorry. haha. all of you are so confusing...

::goes and hides in corner::

:yikes:

At least I'm not the only one who can't tell you two apart.

Matt

Must have been one of the engineers that used to be on 448. Whenever drove to competitions, they'd even bust out the Hooters bobble head for the dashboard.

Does that make me the only one who thinks they look nothing alike?

Hm... saw Patrick, Vicki, and Lara coming out of bailey hall @ Cornell after a talk by Dave Barry :) Good stuff...

I met a bunch of cooridinators for RIVERRAGE at a local carshow...they were on the now defunct Blue Lightning team from manchester.

its really cool how many people there are out there!!

Lets see, I met some TechnoKats at a christian music festival in kentucky, it was pretty cool. I wear my FIRST crew shirt whenever I go anywhere and I usually run into at least one FIRSTer. We are a secret cult. =)

Heh. You can probably count both Bill and me in on that, too. You aren't alone.

Yeah, what Jim said. We used to possibly pass off as twins, but there are very distinct differences in our appearances now.

I met some FIRST members at a callout meeting for some robotics thing...oh wait it was a FIRST callout. Okay..that was my attempt at being funny right now. :)
Eric

I’ve met all sorts of FIRST people in random places. Over spring break, I went to Puerto Rico. Our plane home was late in arriving so I started talking to some of the other people that were waiting. I started talking about FIRST, and it turns out one of the kids was on team 869. Then another time I was at the King of Prussia mall in PA and I met a kid from team 371. And this summer at smart camp(that sounds kind of geeky…) I met an alumnus from team 571, as well as students from 293 and 708. Together we ended up convincing a bunch of kids to join their schools’ FIRST teams. It was fun :D.

No, they look rather diffrent. Bill has this thing that sticks out from his forhead. (Mayhaps that why they call him Bill) :p

I don't think I've run into FIRST people that I didn't know in wierd places, but I do run into people I know.

I did run into Wailua's robot at the Honolulu airport last summer, but it was in a display case in the terminal. It was very random.


Wetzel

I saw a kid in Walmart wearing a FIRST shirt once. He didn't look like he was having the best day, though, so I used my 'finer judgment' and kept walking. I also bumped into the Team 303 advisor in the local Barnes and Noble a few months back.

FIRST and Latin
 

That's FUNNY... At our school, this year our team's Teacher IS the school's Latin teacher. If some of his students join the team, I'll bet we'll end up with a cool Latin team slogan this year... :D

(Last year, our Teacher was from the Math department, who became too busy to do it this year. We don't even HAVE a metal/wood shop at the school right now, so getting "the shop teacher" to work with the students isn't an option.)

OBThreadRef: I ran into a FIRST person from another city on a bus once who was wearing a team shirt. I'm often approached when I'm out of town if I happen to wear any kind of FIRST related clothing or jacket. There's so many teams now, if you wear a team shirt on vacation trips, you're bound to meet another FIRSTer (FIRSTite? FIRSTian?), or general robotics fan, and have a nice conversation.

- Keith

I went to our first football game tonight, against Titusville, and the head cheerleading coach has a neice on Commbat, 21, and we were talking about it, you know apparently they have a 'sign up sheet' in what was it, breeze hallway?, which never actually appeared, it was quite odd...I could only of imagined the game in Commbat was there..

haha, i guess i was lucky at the mall. cause i was like (uh... i don't know. pick a name.) "Vivek, this is bill gold."

Once when I was working as a Camera-Man for the Easter Bunny set at Oakland Mall here in SE Michigan, I saw someone with a TNT shirt on. I yelled out the team number, but he didn't turn.

I guess that's not really meeting per say.. but still.

I was wearing my FEDS shirt today, and found out that my RA's girlfriend was on Team 301. Kinda cool...

Along with Jeff I was on campus for Band Camp for the week and was spending time with a bum knee on the sidelines. One of the other girls with a bad knee, Jess, used to be on 87 and her boyfriend (a tuba player) has a ton of friends on 102.

Also, my high school's principal was originally a teacher/student council advisor/principal at 102's high school before Hightstown.

small world.

Though I am not sure this is a "FIRST person" I did meet someone who works in Princeton Plasma Physics Labs that graduated from WPI and helped out with the FIRST team they sponsor. Her former high school also now has a team.

Six Flags
 

While in line for the Raging Bull with 1064's Kevin (formerly 71) someone from a team around the area spotted my 2001 championship shirt. I can't remember who he was or what team he hailed from. We talked to him for a while and came back to bug him after the ride. I think it made all of our days except for the fact that I finally got to ride V2 and Deja Vu:).

I was at In-n-Out the other day and I saw a man with a shirt that said "Sonoma Robot Games" but nothing about FIRST....I was too shy to ask him about it...I regret it now...

Early last summer, I was walking down Main Street in Newark with a couple other Miracle Workerz Alumni when I saw a guy wearing an old Buzz (175) shirt (2001 season I think, since it just had smily face, without a graduation cap (2002) or a astronaught helmet (2003)). We were thinking about telling him that Newark and all of Delaware was MOE territory and he cant wear that here, but we decided he might not take that joke well. We were starving so we just went to eat at Cluck U instead of talking to him.

For Buzz:

2000: smiley with sunglasses
2001: smiley with graduation cap
2002: plain smiley
2003: space suited smiley

... I have no clue who would be down there and would have a Buzz shirt (and actually wear it in public)

that's just weird!


I tend to run into a random person every once in a while and find out that they know about FIRST. It's pretty cool.

I like never run into anyone up here... But I saw someones car in SC when I was on vacation... It had a team sticker and an autodesk bandana inside the car...

Wierd places
 

Mmmmm the way I actually got roped into FIRST is that I was browsing IndyDDR Forums and I happened to read a post by a kid who had "FIRST" written in his signature, and a whole bunch of links. Crazy, he's now my buddy. DDR & FIRST bring the world together .:cool:

I have never meet anyone that was in FIRST outside of FIRST who I didn't already know. And I DO wear my FIRST shirts a lot to hotel pools, parks, etc, so I'm bound to be seen....

But seeing some Technocats at a Christian Rock concert is #1 on my odd-FIRST-members-sigting...

Re: Wierd places
 

Hmmm... I wonder who this "Crazy Kid" could be? ;)

My friend and I ran into kids from another FIRST team at a chinese buffet during an out-of-state band/choir trip with our school.

I have a couple incidents here:

1: I walked into my Engineering Orientation Lecture (my attendence based class so I can decide what facet of engineering I want to go into) & behind me walked in a kid in the anniversary FIRST shirt. I asked him, turns out he's from 224 (Piscataway HS), but I think I came off as a little too excited, because he didn't talk to me after that.

2: I was walking to the student center the next day before my chemistry class and passed another kid wearing the same anniversary shirt and i was like "yeah FIRST" and he was like "FIRST is life." but we kept walking, didn't really talk to each other. Then, he just showed up right behind me in my chemistry class later that day. I was playing with my FIRST lanyard from EPCOT & the kid next to him was like "dude, she has a FIRST keychain!"

3: This didn't actually happen to me, but I don't think the actual person will post here. At my Engineering Orientation (Mandatory) Picnic, one of the kids on Team 25 stood in the middle of the quad and shouted "Yeah FIRST" just to see how many people would turn around. Needless to say, it was more than half the kids there.

i live in a dorm, and and at USF (i don't know 'bout other schools...) each floor has 2 RA's (resident assistant), who are 2nd-, 3rd-, or 4th-year students who keep the freshmen in check.
i was talking to one of my floor's RAs, and it turns out that not only is she the president of the school's robotics society, but is also alumni from team 386 (voltage). the vice-president of the robotics society is also from 386.

This summer i was at Bush Gardens in Tampa and at one of the food places I saw someone wearing the shirt they gave out at the 2002 nationals. I didn't talk to him but I did see him staring at my 108 shirt.


P.S.- RogerR: An alumni of 108 is at USF (not sure if he lives in a dorm)

Well, I met three more FIRSTers in Bursley Hall... one from 469, one from a team I can't remember, and one who was working on the student dining hall staff. He saw my 2001 Nationals shirt, and said "hey, I was in that." I asked him what team he was from, and he said something in the 300s, and that they were NYC regional champs one year.

do you have his name?
i might have classes with him (assuming he's majoring in engineering)

I was at Great America on band/orchestra tour and I ran into my GRT buddy...That was back in May...

this morning i walked into the dining hall and there was a kid getting a bagel that had on the anniversary FIRST shirt, so i walked up to him while he was eating said breakfast to ask what team he was on...team 53 from maryland :)

and then we chatted about the insanely large numbers on FIRST teams these days

*cough*1089*cough*

Dual-Enrollment College Class
 

I think the most unexpected one was as we're taking a break during my dual-enrolled college class (Im in high school, but take college english). We're out on the... I guess you could call it o deck like thing, outside of the room. I'm talking to one person who just graduated stoneman douglas (A local h.s.) and Im saying how im on robotics. She then also asks another girl near us where she came from. She says from Ely H.S. I tell her the name of my friend there who's on robotics, "Hey, ya know a guy named eric cho?" her response "Yeah, from robotics team". me: "You were on the team??? I'm sigmcat!!" "You're sigmcat?? We love you!"....that REALLY confused the stoneman douglas girl...heh

I was in a chat room discussing the show 'Push, Nevada', and someone used the word Co-Opertition in the conversation. I asked, and of course he was a FIRST person (I forget which team). Plus, I actually convinced someone else in the chat room who was a Mechanical Engineer to volunteer as a mentor.

I went sailing this weekend on the Chesapeake Bay, and it happens that one of the guys on my boat was a mechE mentor on a team in Lexington Park, MD. A few other guys knew about it because they were being bugged at work to mentor local teams. (Pax River NAS is a major Navy R&D base).


Wetzel

This is not so much a strange place, as it is a strange story.

I went to Final Bin Bash yesterday, and while I was there I saw this guy wearing a Rutgers University (where i go to school) hoodie, so I went over to talk to him. Well, we chatted for a couple minutes and when i got back to my dorm room last night my friend Ang (who lives across the hall) was like "this kid in my lab group was there yesterday, his name is John" and it turned out to be the kid i met. so this morning i walked to breakfast and he was eating in the dining hall, and we started talking about FIRST & it turned out that he was on 102. then we were talking about Houston and i told him that my friend Kim (kimr) and I were stalking the two guys from his team that went (because their whole team didn't go, just 2 of them) to get a 102 shirt, and it turned out to be him and his best friend. so then a couple minutes later my friend Lindsay (who's in marching band with me) comes over and sits next to him and i'm like "how does she know John" well, he's in like half her classes and for their major.

I completely didn't realize that he was the one that we traded shirts with, and after I mentioned the shirt thing to him, it turned out he had just recently been talking to his friend about that event.

Ok, now if you followed all of that congratulations, you win the "I can girl talk award!"

SWEET!! i just won an award!!!

I just found out this out today...

My current Physics teacher used to student teach at Los Altos High, home of team 114, and his mentor teacher was one of the team advisors!

I guess that qualifies....Team 814 is leaving him alone since he's new but he better be our advisor next year! Oh man, koolness...

I met a kid in my physics class last week that was on team 11. I was talking to another girl about why i chose mechanical engineering as my major and i mentioned FIRST. He turned around and gave me a strange look, and we started talking about FIRST. so now, we sit together in physics and make fun of our professor, play calculator games, and chatter about FIRST here and there.

On move in day at college I was wearing a shirt and met a kid from Ohio during a fire drill.

I ran into a mentor for the only other team in the syracuse area (liverpool) at our annual jazz fest....happened to be wearing a shirt from the canadian regional (2001) and he noticed it.

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

Haha I actually met two people in "odd" places...

I was at an awards banquet for karate to receive my next level in rank. She was there for her younger sibling and noticed I had a robotics sweatshirt sitting near me, and asked if I was in robotics. I told her that I was, and asked if she was. Turns out, she's a team 65 team member. w00t!

The second one was during my Physics class. An exchange student staying with a family knew the team of the sweatshirt I was wearing (team 469). Apparently, the family has two students on that team, and she knew instantly that I was in robotics by seeing that shirt. She's not in robotics, but still, it was interesting. lol

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

I've met FIRST people at theme parks a couple times. Last year, when I went to Night of Joy at Disney's Magic Kingdom...I saw someone wearing a Heatwave shirt, so I ran up to him and told him I was from SPAM. He just gave me a really weird look until he realized what I was talking about.

And I saw 3 people wearing Demolition Squad shirts at Universal, but they didn't turn around when we screamed at them, so I think they weren't really team members, they looked too young.

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

Standing at the receptionist's desk, waiting to have blood drawn...

that was one of the oddest moments of my life because I was like...wha...you work here??

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

I have a pair of ex-FIRST members in my class. One is an ex-X-Cat from last year Sakath our scout mistress in our theater production seminar(we're doing a comedia play "the Servant of Two Masters" she is part of the mask making team, I'm on props. For some reason the professor is making a big deal about a six-week production schedule. ;) ) and in my Wednesday class I have a past member of Rush robotics Zachary Wheeler who was on the team back in '97. He beamed with much pride when I informed him that his old team had won a regional Chairman's award. There was another kid in my class who knew an awful lot about FIRST. I'll have to grill him further on what team he was affilaited with.

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

She'll probably kill me for posting this....(ssh! don't tell!)

...but here's a pic of me & one of my SigKap sisters, a 571 alum.

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

I talked with FIRST student from half (4) of the team in my state (9) while running an K-State Open House display about FIRST.

I sat next to a kid in macroeconomics in the fall all semester and one day I saw him wearing a stack attack shirt. So after class I asked if he was from Newton, he was suprised that I knew where he was from. I had to explain to him that I saw his shirt and there were only two teams from Kansas at the championship and one was the team I was on.

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

I was in the gym a month ago, and in the recycling bin was one of the Shasta FIRST water bottles. That was from 2002, right? It surprised me.

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

OK!

So in September, I am standing around the cafeteria on lunch duty and a girl walks by in a Buzz Team 175 shirt. Our school is in Ambler,PA and Buzz is from CT. What was even more strange is that Buzz was one of our Galileo Division Partners at the Championship.

I couldn't believe it! So I talked to her and found out she just moved here. The odds are already tough enough, to move from one FIRST school to another FIRST school, but to land with your alliance partner is truly off the hook.

Anyway, needless to say that was the easiest recruiting I have ever done.

She will be back at Nationals, this time wearing "Daisies" instead of bright yellow.

Good luck to everyone at Nationals and in the off-season!!

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

What is it with these Buzz kids invading our area? Last year I was walking down Main Street in Newark, DE with some friends (ironically 2 were MOE alumni and we were all wearing various FIRST shirts) to go get some chicken from Cluck U, when we saw a guy in a Buzz shirt with a couple other guys. It was an old school shirt, probally from 2000 or earlier. We were going to him that "Delaware is MOE territory and you can't wear that" :) , but they went into some store and we were hungry so we just went into Cluck U.

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

I have to drag this back up from the depths...

The other day I walked into a SWE (Society of Women Engineers) meeting. I'm sitting there talking to the Treasurer and her friend comes over and says one word to me. "FIRST?" Of course, my head jumps up and I ask how she knows of FIRST. Turns out, she wasn't a FIRSTer, but her roomate was and got her interested. There was also a team at her high school!

Just the other day I met one of my older fraternity Brothers who went to North Brunswick High School the year team 25 was started.

Oh, and turns out, my RA (resident assistant) last year went to the high school that's home of the Techno Ticks.

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

As long as it's back up from the depths...

I was walking around Epcot this summer, and an employee recognized my 226 shirt, and said they enjyed watching the cometition. Not a FIRST person, but somebody who remembered a t-shirt for two years, so that was pretty cool.

Later this summer I was in Houghton, MI. and somebody walked by me wearing a FIRST shirt. I didn't get a chance to talk to them though.

At the Woodward Dream Cruise this fall I saw somebody walking around completely decked out in HOT gear (t-shirt, jacket, and hat).

And I ran into somebody from 902 at one of my little brother's DI competitions.

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

I had PSAT classes in early October and I sat next to a girl who (as I overheard) was from Scotch Plains. This struck my interest, as I was due to join Scotch Plains's team in about a month or so, but I didn't bother to ask if she was on the robotics team.

Come Brunswick Eruption, I walked through the pits looking to introduce myself to 1257, and who do I see other than the PSAT girl.

PSAT Girl: "Do I know you?"
Me: "Err...I think so."
PSAT Girl: "Oh, right! From the PSAT thing."
Me: "Yeah, that's right. So what team are you on?"
PSAT GIRL: "1257. You?"
Me: "Errr....1257."

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

The ironic thing is both person that i ran into are from 267 (demosquad)... i ran in Randy who is now at Cornell at the Boca Town Center mall. and i run into Tom (their mentor) at FAU (Florida Atlantic University), when i take classes there randomly... :)

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

My band was playing a show at the Webster theatre in Hartford CT. I was walking around in the crowd and i saw this one kid with a 782 (Killowatts) shirt. I talked to him for a while. It was cool.

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

I've met about 4 or so CheifDelphiers while doing community service for Building with Books, because my school (International Acad.) and Pontiac Central are supervised by the same office. I also found someone from team 830 working as a ref at one of the paintball places i went to. I can't remember anyone else specifically right now.

_Alex

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

I see quite a few FIRSTers around campus. But that really isn't odd at all considering that VCU has been hosting a regional for 5 years now.

Wetzel

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

[small world syndrome]

On the afternoon of Thursday 11/5 I had taken a bus from Boston to Manchester, NH. The plan was for my Grandpa to pick me up from the station at 5:05 pm so I may sleep at his house that night. I was scheduled to present at FIRST HQ for the WIST forum the next morning.

I managed to take an earlier bus, I've arrived in Manchester and the time was 4:30pm. I had half an hour to kill so I decide to take a walk.

Another girl exits the bus station and looks out across the street, she appears lost, I ask her where she's going...

340 Commercial St.

DEKA!

I walk that girl over to DEKA because she had a meeting with Dean, we talked on the way... she's in charge of girls program and wants to know of ways to incorporate her program and FIRST somehow. We exchanged information.

Lately I've had a "things happen for a reason" mentality, and this happened for a reason. This could possibly be my next big project, sounds like something I'd enjoy helping out with.

In addition, something presenters emphasized at the WIST forum:
"if something seems like a good opportunity, don't let it pass you by... you never know what might happen"


ByE

erin

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

This isn't exactly meeting FIRST people...but anyways..

There were about 6 students with 2 advisors in our van and we were going home after the rest of our team left on the bus from the Philadelphia Regional..
We stopped at one of those gas station/rest stop/McDonald's places. And there was a baseball team there. Coincidently that team was from one of the high schools (Can't remember the name cuz I have a terrible memory) that we had been spending the entire weekend with. Anyways..one of the baseball players was on FIRST but was unable to attend the competition so we got to talk to him about FIRST stuff...

It was pretty coooooooool :cool:

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

Yea, I was visitng a college last weekend, and when the tour guide mentioned their robotics program this girl asked if it had to do with US FIRST robotics. Needless to say I started a conversation with her.

Last year was actually our rookie year, and we had quite a few people that were going to school at Brown U. seek our team out and offer to help because they had a team at their highschool.

I don't wear my shirt around alot, but I did carry pictures of my robot with me for the vast majority of the summer : )

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

I coach a cheerleading squad and when we went to nationals in disney last year i wore my wildstang shirt and some lady came up to me and started asking me about our robot... little did i know she was a coordinator for a FIRST regional ... good thing i only have great things to say about FIRST. That would be the wierdest place to ever see someone, who knew FIRST people have kids who are cheerleaders?

I also see people at Woodfield mall wandering around in team shirts. That is all the time though so it really isn't that awkward.

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

Let's see...

I met a guy from Team 830 refing at Futureball Outdoor paintball park.

At the local grocery store I work at, two of my co-workers are on Team 1.

I met somebody working at Bass Pro Shop's Outdoor World on Team 47.

My next door neighbor used to mentor a FIRST team.

I'm always trying to meet FIRST people outside of FIRST. I wear my shirts everywhere, not only because they're the only shirts I have, but I'm always trying to flag fellow robotics people.

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

I always wear mine to airports. Ive found all sorts of people that way, Stang engineers, random people who've heard of it, sponsors. Cuts out weirdness when people can relate to you.

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

I saw a guy wearing a team 22 shirt at Carnegie Mellon pre-college this summer. Also spotted a guy in a team 175 shirt at the airport in Atlanta when we were leaving from the championship. The assistant director of admissions at WPI (who e-mailed me because my counselor left some stuff out of my application... grr) was apparently involved with team 190 a couple of years ago.

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

Well i know this is a pretty old thread but i had met some FIRST people in a odd place last night. I was working and i just gotten back to citywalk dock when one of the other captains told me that i should go talk to these girls they do robotics and wanted to know who i participated with. It turns out they are with team 190, so we chatted a few minutes and then they had to leave for there hotel. Hope to see them in nats

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

i work with a guy on happague

walking through downtown new york city i saw a man wearing a first robotics shirt. i said hi and we talked for a lil about the new game....forgot his name and where he was from...i think it was chris

in a bathroom at my local bowling ally ;)

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

Wow... it's been a while since I started this thread ;)

Anyways, I just thought I'd add that I've run into a few FIRSTers again this year. One was a student on the dining hall staff at my dorm; she was on a team from Fenton... I don't recall which. The other lives on my floor, and was a member of Team 74.

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

my cousin is on team 1257 but that doesn't really count.

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

I met some kid in my dining hall, but I might have posted about that already. He was on 381, another team that competes at Jersey. :)

Re: Meeting FIRST People in odd places
 

We just caught up with the member of another local team at music lessons. Another was shopping at the mall- he was on our team from about 5 years back and STILL wearing his team shirt- WAY cool!
:yikes: