I am a geek because...

[Ryan Foley]

...I still havent taken drivers ed yet (I'm 16 and a junior) and I wont take it until 4th quarter of this year because I would rather do FIRST (taking drivers ed any sooner would require me to miss 3 out of 5 meetings a week during the 6 week time we have to build the bot)

...I spent about 6 hours making my teams website (8 if you count the 2 it took me to learn basic HTML)(http://trhsroboticsteam.tripod.com), yet i cant focus and do english hw for more than an hour

...My FIRST binders are organized beyond belief, yet my school binders I couldnt care less about

...I have 3 FIRST binders. The FIRST manual for that year. A binder of Innovation First manuals. And I also have a binder for team related stuff (public relations, team roster, member info, etc)

...I have actually considered instead of buying a car, buy robot parts (such as an Isaac 16 or 32 system, among other things such as motors, Victor 883s, spikes, wheels, etc)(keep in mind i will only actually be driving for a year then I'm off to college, so buying a car to use only for a year kinda doesnt make much sense) so that i can build my own robot (not for any sort of competition, but just for the fun of it)

...I spent all math class last year programming my TI-83 Plus with programs that do out almost and geometrical formula for me

...I made a TI-83 Plus program that calculates the score, winner etc of the 2002 game (it asks you for a few numbers, like how many balls, goals, bots, in scoring position, calculates each alliance's score, and if it is tied, it runs through all the tie breakers)

...When I get bored in any of my classes I pull out a FIRST binder and do FIRST stuff

...Most of my online time is spent looking at FIRST, FIRST related (like this one), or other robotics related sites.

..when i get bored at home i go downstairs to my basement and experiment/ fiddle with all my robotics parts (motors from old kits, transmissions, old controllers from the really old kits (before innovtaion first) old batteries, etc)

..one of my favorite past-times is taking apart mechanical or electrical things just to see how they work, and if i could use and parts from them (so far i have taken apart 1 RC car, 3 calculators, 2 video camera remote controls (the tethered kind, not wireless), and an old computer tape deck (had this cool motor assembly that resembles one of those cranes in the crane games at arcades, but smaller))(by the way, all those things were either not working, or no longer wanted)

...I can write in Binary Code (i once wrote a half a page long note in binary, just to have some fun and confuse the person)

...I enjoy messing with peoples minds (when they get up from their desk i switch their stuff around, not taking it, just relocating it on the same desk, and watch them get confused. Or when people sit in the same seat every day (even though they arent assigned seats) i randomly sit in a new seat every so often, just to screw people up)

...it took me more than 20min to wirte this post (and I'll probably think of more and edit this post again and again and again)

...I have edited ths post 4 times in the last day