[GeeTwo]

At least my top three most embarrassing things were being witness to un-GP behavior. One was a drive team member with the field crew, one was in the pits within a team, and one in the stands. I don't know the names, and wouldn't call them out here if I did. I'm glad that none were representing 3946.

Appended: To refine the question a bit, the most embarrassing thing I ever did at a FIRST event was actually something I let slide about several weeks previously, about two weeks into build season. The game was 2013, Ultimate Ascent. It was my first year as a real mentor (though I had thrown out some ideas and done a few calculations to support the team in 2012). Our second year of competition was the only time we actually ranked in the top 24 at Bayou, but our robot was so incredibly inconsistent that no one would pick us. I later identified the malady as TRS (Twitchy Robot Syndrome). We had several matches in which the pneumatic exhaust valve was left open (can't shoot, can't climb, and with our 2-wheel CIMPLE box drive, can't play much defense), and a number of electrical glitches. But the problem that had us down hard by the end of seeding (so hard that we would probably have turned down an alliance selection had it been offered) and that we did not fix for over a year was my fault. I had help in the poor decision, but it was ultimately my fault not to push harder for correction.

Our frisbee launcher had two pneumatic wheels in series along a linear track spun by ungeared CIMs; we had the first one spinning about 70% of the speed of the second, which both theoretically and by listening seemed to put the same amount of load on each CIM. During a design meeting, mechanisms more and more complex were suggested for the "trigger" that would lift a CIM into the first wheel, and the conversation seemed like it would go on forever. I disengaged from the conversation and built an aluminum "finger" which would ride on the front of a 3/4" pneumatic cylinder, extending into the bottom of a frisbee to lift it, and which would (by its shape) automatically ratchet back behind the next disc. I "cut" 3/4" aluminmum bar by metal fatigue, bent it by hand, drilled it with a hand drill, and pipe-strapped the cylinder in place. (Reasonable prototype techniques, but keep reading.) Long before the argument discussion was over, I had something that worked for several shots in a row. I argued that the bar needed to be rebuilt, but the general mood of the team was that it was "good enough", and after a couple of rounds, I let it pass. We did change the mounts, but we literally competed with a part that was formed by metal fatigue. By the end of competition, the back end of the tongue was completely jammed inside the 1" square tubing that was just supposed to keep it oriented the right way. I worked feverishly with another mentor and three students from the end of seeding to about match 6 of eliminations, and we were little closer to fixing it than when we'd started. I should have been more assertive about doing things right several times that year, but especially on this one.