Team Traditions

[VexisDarksteele]

Hey CD, long time no see! Anyone hyped for Kickoff? (Oh, who am I kidding? We're all about to burst with excitement! Better unplug the toaster before it catches itself on fire... )

Anyway! What I was wondering about were all of the fun or quirky little traditions your teams may have, robot-related or not. Do you do something special for your graduating students? Is there a particular team-specific piece or feature you always build onto your robots? Any fun events that your team hosts every year? Do your members wear any special team regalia at competitions (aside from the t-shirts)?

Something I'm trying to establish with our team is headwings. When we founded the team in 2011 and developed our logo/mascot, I made myself a pair of dark blue wings mounted on a headband to wear around at competitions and community events (and sometimes even to school the day before an event). I've worn those things to death over the last 3 years, and they've become sort of an identifier for me and the team presidency in general. Now that a new president has been elected (and she has expressed her desire for her own set of wings), I'm trying to make it a role-specific tradition for each president to have his or her own unique pair of headwings. I'll color code them by year and role; team alumni can opt to have a white/"silver" pair made with their graduation year written on the band, and mentors would have yellow/"gold" wings (if they wanted them). When I remake my pair this season, they'll be a mixture of white and yellow. That way, it's a badge of honor to bear wings upon your head!
Other than that, we always have our yearly banquet on the last day of school. I'm sure that most teams have that tradition, though.

So go forth and share your team's unique traditions whilst we count down the days to Kickoff!

[midway78224]

When i was a student on my former team we had a few traditions. First one is we would have a prank war girls vs. guys then vets vs. rookies. Next we would make a fort in our hotel room the first night and leave it there til the last night. Those were fun times.

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by VexisDarksteele

Hey CD, long time no see! Anyone hyped for Kickoff? (Oh, who am I kidding? We're all about to burst with excitement! Better unplug the toaster before it catches itself on fire... )

Anyway! What I was wondering about were all of the fun or quirky little traditions your teams may have, robot-related or not. Do you do something special for your graduating students? Is there a particular team-specific piece or feature you always build onto your robots? Any fun events that your team hosts every year? Do your members wear any special team regalia at competitions (aside from the t-shirts)?

Something I'm trying to establish with our team is headwings. When we founded the team in 2011 and developed our logo/mascot, I made myself a pair of dark blue wings mounted on a headband to wear around at competitions and community events (and sometimes even to school the day before an event). I've worn those things to death over the last 3 years, and they've become sort of an identifier for me and the team presidency in general. Now that a new president has been elected (and she has expressed her desire for her own set of wings), I'm trying to make it a role-specific tradition for each president to have his or her own unique pair of headwings. I'll color code them by year and role; team alumni can opt to have a white/"silver" pair made with their graduation year written on the band, and mentors would have yellow/"gold" wings (if they wanted them). When I remake my pair this season, they'll be a mixture of white and yellow. That way, it's a badge of honor to bear wings upon your head!
Other than that, we always have our yearly banquet on the last day of school. I'm sure that most teams have that tradition, though.

So go forth and share your team's unique traditions whilst we count down the days to Kickoff!

Any reason for the small hard to read font, remember some of us are old

One tradition of ours is that there has to be a vex part (non Vex Pro) on our robot. It doesn't even have to be functional it just has to be there.

[RohitD]

Our team always eats Samosas on bag day.

Also, for the last couple of seasons, we've had a sign somewhere on our robot that says "Hi Mark", as a shoutout to one of our mentors.

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by IndySam

Any reason for the small hard to read font, remember some of us are old

One tradition of ours is that there has to be a vex part (non Vex Pro) on our robot. It doesn't even have to be functional it just has to be there.

One of our traditions (which was unknown to me for a while) was to place a fork somewhere inside the frame tubing of the robot. When we forgot to put it inside the tubing of the offseason robot, we suddenly started having a lot more success on the field. Perhaps we had accidentally created an unlucky charm?

[Jay O'Donnell]

Since we're the PVC Pirates, it is necessary for there to be PVC somewhere on all of our robots.

[mechanica]

one of the traditions is for one of our beloved mentors to bring all the girls on the team cupcakes on valentines day while locking all the boys in the work room so they won't steal the cupcakes. if the boys really got on our nerves, us girls made sure that they saw us enjoying our packages of happiness!

Since 2012, we always have to have a piece of steel on our robot. It's not a good luck charm, just us laughing at our old designs.

[CNettles11]

On 3556, we've always celebrated "FIRST-giving". On the day before the Superbowl, we ask for everyone to bring in thanksgiving dishes for a FIRST-giving dinner. The entire team sits in a circle and goofs off, and someone usually suggests that we invite Dean and Woody to the next FIRST-giving.

We also have The Hulk, which came about in 2012 when a toy Hulk figure ended up in the bag with our Rebound Rumble robot. It's been a mainstay on our robots, drivers' station, and on top of some of 3556's machining equipment ever since. We even refer to lining up our robot for Auto mode as "Hulking it in".

We also unofficially designate day two of competition as "Classy Friday". Most of the team rocks their business attire, ranging anywhere from dress shirts and ties to three-piece suits. We even had someone in a tuxedo one year, but the shoe phone jokes became too much.

[MysterE]

Hmmm...

We have our annual Laser Tag Lockin the week before kickoff. It lasts from12am till 5am. We have one or two cheers that we created and teach to new members every year. Finally, we have a panther puppet that finds it's way into our pit each year. There are probably more but I'll leave those for now.

[Dick Linn]

Team 975's first robot was mostly plywood, so the mantra was "Wood is good". Later robots were metal, but we always looked to put on a piece of wood, somehow.