[Nate Laverdure]

Oh, I thought the story behind this bowl was that teams had brought some assorted hardware up to the Pit Admin desk so that other teams could grab whatever they needed out of it instead of making a parts request announcement. Kind of like the take-a-penny, leave-a-penny tray. I vaguely remember seeing the bowl appear immediately after some team asked for one 1/4-20 bolt that was exactly 1.75" long in order to mount some major component.

Your explanation makes much more sense in hindsight.