Re: Strangest display of team spirit
 

Personally I'd be ammused if I looked down and saw that, and I know for a fact the sponsors of my team have very good sense of humors and would end up laughing if they went to the event and saw that. Our team mentors wouldn't allow us to do that, but if the students did it behind their back, the mentors would just laugh and stand behind the team because in the end it is harmless.

My team has a long 14 ft arm, a T shape end, with a half ball on the very end and on the left and right sides of the T.. We had offered 10 bucks if a person could physcially touch one of the balls..

Now our mentors and team had some fairly creative, well not creative, but funny stuff to put on the sign, we didn't because it was a borderline comment and would possibly offend some females and the adults that wouldn't see innocent humor.

But anyway I know teams have to have some other strange and creative ways of getting their team out there and I'd be interested in hearing some stuff.

Re: Strangest display of team spirit
 

Yea Team 456 had 4 guys running around with no shirts when standing together they said GO 456. It was funny, but still should not have been done. To some people this could have bothered them and made them uncomforitible. I think it was unprofesional when they went to except an award and one of the guys was hugging the judges.

On the urinal Cake they did it teh last day before lunch.

Re: Strangest display of team spirit
 

I would have done something like that after lunch... I mean, do you really want to eat lunch after sticking your hand in a toilet?

Ya, that was interesting too....

Last year we wrapped someone in orange streamers and had them run around the stands. That looked very nice.

Re: Strangest display of team spirit
 

Ummm...don't bathroom activities normally stink? ;)
I don't think the judges necessarily use the same bathrooms as the teams, seeing as they often have their own VIP facilities. Even if the male judges saw these items, I expect their opinions would have been as varied as this thread.

My favorite at the SoCal Regional was Team Hyper's three-headed "mascot," or whatever it was supposed to be. (I watched the team screw two mannequin heads into the shoulders--really strange.) So they had this guy's real head in the middle, and two weirdly made-up female looking heads on either side, plus the vividly colored costume.

And poor Mark Leon, after using the word "math" just about every other sentence, would make a mistake and call this creature "two-headed!" l.o.l. To his credit, he did correct himself. I think he was very tired.

Re: Strangest display of team spirit
 

I am the team captain of team 647; yes, I am admitting that my team put the urinal cakes in the men’s restroom. We did bring our own new, unused, urinal cakes to the event and a student member carved our number into them. (Making our shop smell very good). The intentions of this were humor and advertising and to get people to remember our number. It also gave server of our team members something to do between ship and our regional. Obviously, this worked and if some people took offensive to what I find as a harmless act of humor and advertising I apologize. In addition, for the record our team mentors did know of this and encouraged the creativity of the team. Along with our custodians, help acquired the team the urinal cakes to accomplish this feat of advertisement. We did win Imagery at LSR but I would not put the urinal cakes as any part of the reason for this. We won imagery because of our camo net tent, digital camo pants, camo robot, and tank cart puller. Our military theme fits perfectly with our sponsors who our OTC/TESCO who tests military equipment before it gets out to the soldiers.

In summery, were sorry if this offended anyone but this seemed like a very creative and harmless way to get our number to other teams at our regional.

Re: Strangest display of team spirit
 

I too would like to defend team 647. Personally, the competition itself is more about having fun than competing. I m sure the corporations, teachers, students, spectators and staff come with the same mindset. Furthermore, doing stupid (but responsible) stunts adds more teenage flavor to the competition.

Re: Strangest display of team spirit
 

One more thing I would like to add was that after our initial team discussion of this subject one of our team members decided to become Urinal Cake Captain. He took on this project and through it gained valuable leadership skills. He made sure everything on this project got done and he made it a reality.

Re: Strangest display of team spirit
 

As an old fuddy duddy, I don't have any problem with the urinal cake idea. At Chesapeake the RAGE team had an entire basket of health and sanitary products at the sinks in the ladies bathroom. They had bandages, lotion, hand sanitizer, and more and no one took offense at the advertisement for cleanliness and how it would impact their team image. I guess it is all in the placement and the idea that you guys actual pee on top of urinal cakes that some find offensive. Well, as someone who occasionally has been in a unisex bathroom and lives with three males, any attempt at making your toilet facilities more sanitary is welcomed, in my opinion. Now, if I could just teach them all to wash their hands!

I thought the team that trotted around the arena with the half coconut shells; like they were from Monty Python, was great and unique. My 12 year old, visiting on Saturday, thought it hilarious.

Re: Strangest display of team spirit
 

Haha! Urinal Cake Captian. lol. Awsome idea but I m sure there are people on this forum that disagree. This is because there are so many different personalitites that come together as a FIRST team. I was the scouting leader at the Toronto regional. I had a pink tie and a big note on my back saying "I love Robot Chicks. Got number??". Some people (including my one team mate) found that offensive but some thought it was hilarious.

Re: Strangest display of team spirit
 

Hi All,

As the Lone Star Regional Director, I will comment on the cause and effect of a team's creativity. I take my job as a Regional Director very seriously. One of the things, I love about FIRST is the opportunity of interacting with lots of great people. The students, mentors, volunteers and great sponsors. My committee and I work hard all year long to make the Lone Star Regional a great experience for all teams attending. We have a spare parts booth for teams that includes screws, nuts, bolts etc. FIRST provides motors etc the regional committee provides the extras. All of our teams are valued and treated as if they were our own. The Houston committee and our volunteers takes team customer service to the next level.

With that said, you ask what harm does this teenage creativity cause. The reputation of our regional. Yes, I did hear about this from the Reliant venue folks. What someone may view as creativity is viewed by others in another way. This facility doesn't belong to FIRST or the Lone Star Committee. This youthful creativity will be brought up when we need this facility for next year's regional. So if you are a student or a mentor on a team, please think is this something that would make your grandmother proud.

Team 647 is a wonderful team and has some great mentors and I know that all of them want to make their grandmothers proud.

Re: Strangest display of team spirit
 

I understand where you are comming from but the funny thing is is that my grandmother called me and told me that my grandfather had seen this post on here. She thought it was absolutly hilarius. So I think that it wouldn't make them proud but then again it wouldn't be anything to be ashamed of, atleast I kinow that my grandmother wouldn't say that she didn't know me if I did something like that.



The driver for team 537 at Midwest painted his face, hair, and his neck red. I thought that was pretty cool.

Re: Strangest display of team spirit
 

I will just state this point. The bottom line it is what one thinks is funny cause problems for the regional.

Re: Strangest display of team spirit
 

I think this thread is getting off topic again, so I will try to steer it back on course. I was recently at Toronto and I saw a team, not sure of their number at the moment, who had created an animation of their mascot dancing to the song "Cotton Eye Joe". They then asked to have it put up on the screen whenever the song was played and had their real life mascot dancing along with their animated one. This is one of the most creative things i have seen at all the regionals i have been to (Nine or ten if you count Nationals.)

And for the second year in a row, team 229 also has had three of our members running around and dancing with 229 painted on their chests. At Cleveland they were asked to put their shirts back on by the announcer during one of the breaks. He didn't want them to scare the women and children. :D They were happy to throw their shirts back on and simply put a duct taped 229 on their shirts instead.

JT
229

Re: Strangest display of team spirit
 

This was very cleaver! Team 647 is a great team and I thought is was funny. The big question is how did Reliant management react to the situation (hopefully they were ok with it).

Altough I would have used a bullseye! :D

Re: Strangest display of team spirit
 

Okay, the urinal cakes were great, even if I didn't see them (being as I go to the WOMENS restroom and for some reason a lack thereof of urinals and their cakes). Spite on anyone who took offence to it. If anyone should take offence to it, it should be the cyber wolves... I mean... in the end people are pissing on the team -_-;.