VEX related technically but still...
when your parents think you're dating every guy in the robotics team
when you have to explain to all your non-robotics friends as to why you have a roll of duct-tape and zipties in your handbag
when it takes you five minutes to actually think of any non-robotics friends to justify the above
when your grandparents come to your house to visit and ask why you're at home
when your teachers have stopped asking why you werent in class
when you walk around the school quietly in a sleep-deprived state waiting for a class you can get away with skipping
when you sprint from one end of the school to the other (while recieving weird looks from everyone you pass) just to get that precious extra 2 minutes on the robot
when you and your team spend every lunchtime in the robotics room even when you have no robots to build
when your robotics mate's older sister (who happens to be your hero [other than Dean Kamen :L]) is standing right behind you and you dont even notice because of the heated discussion you're having with the mate on who's robot will be finished first
when you can write all this stuff even though you havent had your rookie FIRST competition yet
when you have heated debates over whether cardboard team signs in the VEX competitions have to be made of 'vex cardboard'
when you program your calculator so that you can make notes about robotics during math class (then i had to clear the memory for an exam and cant remember how i did it
)
when you complain that your internet cord doesnt stay in and all your friends immediately yell 'DUCT TAPE!'
when the one person who doesnt suggest duct tape starts explaining in great detail how you can fix it 'properly' and everyone stares at him like he's mad
when someone at an event hears you talking about Delphi and asks if you know who <insert screen name here> is.
when your immediate response to the above is 'well she IS my teammate. if you like i could recite you her weekly schedule'
when you've rebuilt your VEX robot so many times that you start informing everyone that when you finally get a FIRST number, your rebuild-count will be higher
when you walk into your class after lunch - late - wearing your safety glasses, because you forgot to trade them for your normal glasses, and have to run back to get them
when you dont care when everyone laughs at you for the above
when you log onto Chief Delphi in in the middle on the night and are disappointed to see the 'Nightly Backup' notice
when the seniors at your school go on study leave and you suddenly find yourself a loner because all your junior friends are non-robotics friends and refuse to hang out with you within a month of a VEX competition
when you dont care about the above and spend all lunch in the room anyway, fiddling with gear and tank-tracks
when you no longer laugh at the word 'joystick'
when doing a project on cults in english class, you seriously start to wonder if FIRST is a cult - then decide you wouldnt care even if it was
when you cant wait to get your team number so you can do the things that people posting here do
when the worst threat you can possibly make to someone is 'I wont give you the small allen key!!'
when you come up with detailed plan of how to survive six weeks at school so that you dont have to go home
[The great thing about liking someone in your robotics team is that they've already seen you at your worst, and you cant shock them with ANYTHING anymore
]