The first FIRST competition I ever went to was the UTC New England Regional in 2001. Our robot did horribly, we had our pits outside in a tented area where it was not only cold as heck (CT weather in March) but, we also had flooding in there. (Did I mention our robot was 19.5 feet long too?)
We rebuilt the robot after every match, and we placed maybe somewhere in the last 5 spots.
I was called up to coach in one round, and Woodie Flowers, who was MCing the event, tapped on the glass, and pointed at his eyes. Apparently I forgot something - my safety glasses. I ran to the direction of the pits, but since the countdown for the match had already begun, I asked the first person I saw in the queuing line to borrow theirs. They let me and then in that match we broke once again. We pulled the bot off to the side of the stage and tried to fix it. I had the person I borrowed the glasses from yelling at me that they needed them back, so I ran over to them and threw the glasses their direction and was off with a quick "Thanks" as their match was being count down to start.
Later that day, I painted on a set of "safety glasses" with some face paint.
Then after the competition was over, a couple of teammates and I went outside to help pack up some stuff since we were not in the finals. We saw a limo, and asked who was in it. The driver told us that somebody had hired them to drive them from the competition. We asked if it was someone named Dean Kamen. He said no, but we still had a feeling that it was for him. One of my friends tried to bribe the driver for more info with a dollar, and he still wouldn't tell us who it was for.
After standing outside for about ten minutes and talking with the driver, we saw Dean come out toward the venue, and we asked him for his signature. He gladly obliged, and the friend who tried to bribe the driver with the dollar had Dean sign the dollar. (I think)
(btw, I still had the safety glasses painted on my face at this time.

)
Dean got in the limo and left, and as soon as he left we all kicked ourself for not taking pictures since all 3 or 4 of us had cameras in our pockets.
The team party that Friday night was at the University of Hartford gym, and we danced

, and sang, and ate free food and had a blast.