FIRST Terminology!
 

Ok, Im really bored, and this has been talked about for a while....

There are some terms only a FIRST-er would understand...and I feel it needs to be compiled.

Please post your submissions in to this thread, and maybe I'll get a list/book out for Nats or something.

Heres a start:

*FIRST Purist - back to the early day's of FIRST corn, hexagonal fields, one on one.
*FIRST Puritan - defend the real FIRST rules, game, etc.
*FIRST Activist - any FIRST-er who will not keep their mouth shut about FIRST to others, or a FIRST-er who is very vocal in the FIRST community.
*Virginia Balance - method of balancing seen most frequently at the VCU regional in 2001, where if a judge could stick their hand/piece of paper underneath the low side of the balanced bridge, it was accepted as balanced.

Please submit terms that can be regionally/nationally accepted and understood, not some obscure term that only your team used (trust me, I have a bunch of them, too...but Im refraining). And feel free to bring in terms from past years.

Also, PLEASE, this is NOT the place to rekindle the bar-lok/tie-wrap war. Ok? Go take it to another thread, I want none of that here ;)

Robot types
 

We need to break out the names we've given to different robot types over the years, most memorable being the Monkeybots of last year and the lowriders of this year.... I'm tryign to think back further but I'm having brain frying b/c of our all-day demo yesterday.....

more from this year were balancers (on bridge), balancers (off bridge), big ballers (us):D , small ballers

I personally like the term Limbo bot from this year. Just creates a good mental picture. Oh, and for the record, I don't know about the rest of the Virginians, but my team personally liked to call it the "Cheesey Balance," not the Virginia balance. Since we never used (or tried to use) that we'd prefer not to have the title. :cool: :)

~Tom~, a very proud Virginian (although never was until now)

flipper (n)- a device that postitions itself underneath an opponent and lifts at a high torque & speed, sending the opponent on its side.

tread (v)- to constantly take offensive measures against an opponent within the rules, but cause damage.

T5 (n)- The rule in the 1997 rulebook that legalized flipping over opponents.

Ok, I don't know how you all missed this one, but whatever ;)

FIRST-a-holic - (n.) A person who's life has become so incredibly wrapped up in the FIRST Robotics Compeition that to separate them would be worse than amputating a limb.

I've yet to see anyone fully understand my FAH pin - though it has allowed me to explain FIRST to many people when the ask ;)

~ lora
FIRST-a-holic 4 Life
(Team Tie Wrap!!!) *ducks and runs from the thread with Jess on her heels*

Follow-ups & The VA (Cheese?) Balance
 

Ok, Tom, I hear ya there......I'll add in both terms, if you dont mind.

Plus, it would be great if, instead of just listing terms to be defined, that you define them as well (so Im not as clueless on how to define them) Thanks!

Later, everyone....::starts to run after Lora::

Floppy (n): A bunch of packing peanuts inside a flat piece of cloth with velcro on its sides; the main scoring item of the 1999 competition (I hope someone can explain it better than I can).

goal (n): any part of the playing field used to hold objects for scoring.

I-Bot (n): Electric wheelchair invented by Dean Kamen with 6 gyros enabling it to maneuver on 2 wheels.

6 feet sitting (adj): used to describe Dean Kamen in the I-Bot.

The F.I.R.S.T team 293 dictionary
 

heh, last year, the team elders (mainly seniors) compiled a dictionary about team 293's season. I'll give a link, but be warned: it may offend you, it contains some jabs at Chief Delphi (and other Delphi-sponsored teams). Needless to say, the opinions expressed in the dictionary do not reflect my own personal opinions, nor the opinions of our team as a whole or our sponsors.

The link: click here

how about ninny?

Ninnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnny
 

Give me an official definition for ninny, and it goes in ;)

ninny (n) - FOOL, SIMPLETON (got that from Mirriam-Webster)

definition for ninny...hmmm
what is a ninny...
a ninny just is i think, but anyone whos been around the forums for a while has a pretty good idea of what exactly being a ninny implies...
of course, give the ninny a powertool and youve got a rambot

Ninny...
 

Besides a Rambot with a power tool is a person who posseses the ability to construt and operate a robot, with full knowledge and ability, with little to no help from professional engineers. Add in that Anton is the head ninny. Does that cover everything or did I leave something out?
C~ya,
Carolyn who thinks someone should email these last few posts to Anton.

Weight reduction
 

When you're in weight reduction time and you have to resort to drilling holes, we call it "swiss cheesin'" or "speed holes." When we went to demo's and people asked about it, we said that they gave us an advantage because it lets air pass thorogh more freely. They just laughed. Here is an example.


/edit i changed the picture

im gonna have to find out exact numbers but i know that in the 2000 comp the rambots had to drop either 5 or 15 lbs the day before shipping...which adds up to a lot of holes being drilled. ill also try and find a pic of the bot before and after...

On 7 we were 20 pounds overweight the Satudray before ship (this was 2000). We redesigned an entire subsystem at that point to reduce weight. :)

Matt

Behold the power of cheese. :D

Eddie, I'm going to assume you meant the power of making your robot look like cheese but drilling a great many holes in it to reduce weight, but, knowing you, it may have fun been something random that came to your mind. Anyway..that's what my team has done the last three years when we've been overweight..simply drilled lots and lots of holes in the lexan. Luckily, one of our engineers thought ahead this year and has us drill some holes from the beginning so we didn't have to do all of them the day before ship (no..smoothing out holes all night is not fun, contrary to popular belief by Mike Lee on my team..).

~Angela who remembers that the adults wanted to name the 2001 robot Swiss Miss b/c of the holes..luckily, the controls team won out in naming the bot 3-Bits

<---- feels sorry for Jessica who was trying to make a dictionary of FIRST terminology. :(

~Tom~

you know...tom's got a point there. its probably a really REALLY bad sign when you try to take a task like that on...

Why feel sorry for me? I dont. ;)

Actually, this whole thread stemmed from a conversation Justin & I were having about how depending on when FIRST-ers join a team, and what kind of team they join (rookie, vet, rich, poor, northeast, midwest, etc) how their viewpoint of FIRST in general & towards the game is different.

For instance, there are people who feel that the game should not be changed, no matter what...that it is an absolute sacrilege to even think about going against what Dean & the gang came up with originally. Those are the Puritans.

And...we felt that those people needed a term...it stemmed from there. Thats it, I guess.

What about.......
 

The Monorail-buster?????

:D:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :D

Im not the one that broke the monorail...that would be you ;)

Re: What about.......
 

should I ask?

Actually, there are a couple common commercials up my way that are about cheese doing cool stuff (like one of them where a girl leaves cheese for Santa, and he leaves a whole slew of gifts there, including a corvette under the tree), and at the end, they say "Behold the power of cheese".

Uh, anyone want to help me out here?

ive seen those commercials too...but i assumed you were using the quote in reference to drilling holes

Re: Re: What about.......
 

::sigh:: Elgin was our "responsible adult chaperone" our last day in FL...and we were on the monorail from Magic Kingdom to Epcot and he decided that he'd hold onto one of the top panelings, which proceeded to come loose in his hands (turns out it was the emergency exit, and if it had fallen any further, the alarm wouldve tripped)...soooo, he had to hold it up alllll the way to Epcot...I wish I had my camera ;)

responsible adult chaperones...sounds like ours...anton...diago...riley...josh...tom...igor.. .

Re: Re: Re: What about.......
 

How was I supposed to know it was the emergency exit??? I saw a handle and put my hand up to grab it, like on all other types of trains where there are handles!! But, It's a good thing that nice conductor understood what happened and didn't keep me there to explain what exactly happened. BTW he said it happened alot!!! (Now that I llok back at it I think he was lying!!!) So what if I was the cause of a monorail traffic jam behind that station. Whoop-de-doo!!!:D

Re: Re: Re: Re: What about.......
 

personally, i would be proud to be the cause of a monorail traffic jam. but thats just me...

That's why we always rent vans down in Kissime.

Well, my team had a charter bus. But we shared it with 2 other teams so there's a lot going on all the time. We ended up using Disney transportation most of the time we were there. It's ok though. We got by just fine... (LOL) I'm thinking about adventures we had. hehehe ;)