You know you're addicted to FIRST when...

[Vincent Chan]

Bored, tired, and waiting for food, so I thought I'd start up this list.

...you skip school to spend eight hours working on your bot.
...you have dreams about robotics.
...you talk about FIRST all day in an attempt to recruit people.
...you no longer have friends outside of your FIRST team.

[PureMachine4]

I have to agree with you there. I too have been talking alot of robotics hoping to recruite freinds to join and i think it's working.

















Fix it before it breaks, so you don't have to fix it when it breaks

[narenr]

....your robot is your valentine.

....your coach/teacher has to get you an extension on a class project so you can work on the robot.

[Koko Ed]

Your wife refers to FIRST as your "Second wife"

[Melissa Nute]

When your b/f looks at your hands and nails and says "Been at the shop again?"

[FAKrogoth]

. . . Your study hall teacher says every day, "Why don't you just transfer over there?"

. . . A discussion with a team engineer involves you saying, "Look, I built the $@#$@#$@#$@# thing, and I know it does this . . "

[Trashed20]

...every sentance ends with "your mother", "in bed", or "and then you die twice"
...you find the word toaster funnier than usual
...Will cries for the robot
...run out of freshman to file things
...wheels aren't round anymore
...when you order 4 big mothers a day (pizza)
...when subway hates you
...it works


yeah, fun stuff

[Joe Matt]

-You talk in criptic language to people.
-If they say BattleBots after Robotics Competition, they arn't your friend anymore.
-You dream of Segway
-Food becomes day old pizza left in the work area (no, I DON'T do that, that's just, not right....)
-You start to become insane by jumping into walls... durring school.... infront of girls.... Senior girls....
-You must check the storage lane in Target every day.
-You start to not shave and obsess over The Simpsons episodes and how they arn't how they used to be.
-Murder is the treatment for being a Mole to another team
-Brandon Martus becomes your arch nemissis
-You wonder if something can be completed quicker using a robot
-You have two friends: Robotics and Normal
-You start to come up with sayings such as "DON'T LICK THE BATTERY!!!"
-You'll kill for a Segway
-You see red, white, and blue shapes in your dreams
-You wake up to Smooth Criminal
-You know what Pubarso stands for
-Sleep is what you get durring English class
-You can't wait till the TNT James Bond marathon.
-Feb 18th is Armadgedon

[DanLevin247]

....You spend at least 4 hours a day on Chief Delphi's forums


....You fail countless test because you were too busy building a robot to study


.....When given the name of a team or a team's number, you can tell them the name or number of that team ( ex. "247" would warrant "'da bears" as an answer and "da bears" would warrant "247" as an answer.

[Specialagentjim]

...when you go from junior member to custom title in a 6 week period
...when your main requirment for getting an iPod from school is so you can transfer a gig of targas back and forth
...when you have a Delphi group on your buddy list
...When half of your daily classes (2 of the 4) are "Do your FIRST work..when your animation's submitted with that, we'll get to doing regular class work"


More to come!

[Jeff_Rice]

When you seriously consider taking the robot to Prom

When you begin to wonder if you are a robot

When you form mental algorithms to do stuff while you think about robots

When life becomes First with irrelevant stuff in between.

When you convince your mother to feed the pit crew and programmers

When you drive 45 miles away to work on the robot.

When you place willingness to participate in FIRST as one of your top criteria for a g/f

When you can reason out why the robot does what it does.

[Ken Loyd]

Originally posted by Koko Ed
Your wife refers to FIRST as your "Second wife"

My wife has a team shirt with "FIRST Widow" where here name should be.

Ken Loyd
Team 64

[Matt Attallah]

Originally posted by Trashed20
...every sentance ends with "your mother", "in bed", or "and then you die twice"

LOL!!!

-When you leave knowing you made a difference in a child's life.
-When you can't wait for march to roll around
-When you change a life of a child
-When you yell at people that say battle bots are cool
-when your girl/boy friend says you wanna marry FIRST
-when you want to do nothing but long trigonometry to find out the exact angle for a drive train part
-when you wanna see Dean Kamen and Woodie Flowers at your pit!!!!

[AJ Quick]

Originally posted by Trashed20
...every sentance ends with "your mother", "in bed", or "and then you die twice"

Seriously.. they do.

[Raven_Writer]

Originally posted by Matt Attallah
LOL!!!

-When you leave knowing you made a difference in a child's life.
-When you can't wait for march to roll around
-When you change a life of a child
-When you yell at people that say battle bots are cool
-when your girl/boy friend says you wanna marry FIRST
-when you want to do nothing but long trigonometry to find out the exact angle for a drive train part
-when you wanna see Dean Kamen and Woodie Flowers at your pit!!!!

good reasons...good reasons. but what about these:

- when matt drives, and they know to move out of the way (just playin)
- people yell your names from the stands (actually, it's kinda...wait, really scary then)
- you treat people like robots by putting an ateanna on their head, and try to move them with a joystick

[illumanat'i]

- when a librarian comes to you with tech questions

- when one of your sponsors buys a seguaway and brings it to your school (that was MAD fun, i mean, $@#$@#$@#$@#!)

- when the school forbids you from skipping classes because teachers start to complain

- when your parents begin to understand what your talking about

[Raven_Writer]

Originally posted by illumanat'i
- when your parents begin to understand what your talking about

Now that's just plain krazy, but sweet when it happens.

- when you know what to expect at every comp.

[DanLevin247]

...when FIRST is the major reason why you want to become an engineer

...When you've had strep throat for a week and a half, but haven't had time to go to the doctors to get some medicine, because you've been to busy with robotics.

[Specialagentjim]

Originally posted by illumanat'i

- when one of your sponsors buys a seguaway and brings it to your school (that was MAD fun, i mean, $@#$@#$@#$@#!)

- when the school forbids you from skipping classes because teachers start to complain

- when your parents begin to understand what your talking about

Point a.) Our SCHOOL is attempting to buy two segways!
Point b.) Yeah... I've had teachers ban me from gettting pulled out..and others that just said before I asked that I could go.
Point c.) Parents understanding...yeah...that means that you've been working at home too much..like me..


- also, you know you've been in FIRST too long when your main focus on building a new computer is to cut down render time for teh animation comepetition.

[Raven_Writer]

optimization is to hard in animation really.

- when they all know the songs from the pits, when the songs aren't played anywhere else

[Vincent Chan]

...your hands perpetually smell like metal.
...you can tell the size of a bit/nut/bolt/screw (and the threading on metric nuts/bolts/screws) just from glancing at it.
...you consider how awesome it would be for your team to do something out of Monster Garage.
...you're seen carrying power tools around school.

[Raven_Writer]

Originally posted by Vincent Chan
...your hands perpetually smell like metal.
...you can tell the size of a bit/nut/bolt/screw (and the threading on metric nuts/bolts/screws) just from glancing at it.
...you consider how awesome it would be for your team to do something out of Monster Garage.
...you're seen carrying power tools around school.

gotta love knowledge.

- the fact that you can tell anyone what first is really about

[Jferrante]

ok. i'm really scared because i can relate to about 90% of those.
- parents understanding <-- never gonna happen
- 45 miles to go work on the bot <-- i would but the shops alot closer than that


- Miss 3 days of school with 103+ fever, yet only half of one robotics meeting.

- Have holes and saw marks in your furniture for lack of a better workplace.

- give yourself a nosebleed due to programming for to long at one time (yes i did this my rookie year)

- Write the majority of your college/scholarship essays about your experience in FIRST (i did this... and it worked. )

-First thing you do when waking up is to check for any new information on chiefdelphi or FIRST's websight

[Jeff_Rice]

When you hit refresh every two seconds to read a new quote at the top of CD

When you consider implementing a mood matrix into the robot just because it would be cool

When you realize how absolutely cool it is for a girl to be in FIRST

When you tell FIRSTers thousands of miles away about your troubles

When you develop an intensive craving for caffeine at anytime while programming

When you gain a level of experience similar to your mentors

When you plot to implement a lego first team with a grant from your team (which does not exist yet-see sig)

What's really great is when your bot works and you have that crazy feeling like your heart is in a bubble-bath of child-hood wonder, like you looked up at the sky and reached up and grabbed a falling star.
Wow. I'm not an expert writer but I think I got the point across there.

[OneAngryDaisy]

- When you make a stupid health project out of twenty of last year's CD's

(Anyone else have this problem? You go to a competition, come home, and your pockets are overflowing with CD's you never passed out)

-When you haven't said Hi to your little brother for a month because you're in the shop until after his bedtime

[Perseus]

Originally posted by Jeff_Rice
When you hit refresh every two seconds to read a new quote at the top of CD

So I am not the only one!! they should make a list of them, make it easier

[Vincent Chan]

Originally posted by Perseus
So I am not the only one!! they should make a list of them, make it easier

They DO have one...

[Perseus]

and that would be where?

-when u plan to spend ur entire 4 day weekend(9am-11pm) building ur robot

-when u spend 30 minutes on the phone with McMaster only to find out they dont accept Discover, and then accidently hanging up

-when u know scoring and rules for the past 3 robotics competitions but cant remember what u learned last week in any of ur classes

[Vincent Chan]

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/spotlightlist.php?s=

under extras in the top right corner.

...when you get log more build hours than sleep hours on some (all?) nights.

[wwrye]

-When you make a trip a day to the electronics store

[sean_killey]

-Your conversation with your parents for the day is:
Mom: "Where are you going?"
Sean: "Robotics"
Mom: "See you tomorrow"

-When you get home at 1 in the morning... only to say "I dont have time for homework now"

-Havnt talked to your sister in 3 days

-Invent seanny dont

-Your conversations are filled with "I'll [insert verb] you!"

[rbayer]

...you know the correct size tap and clearance hole drill bits for any size screw.
...you no longer need Band-Aids because the machine oil permanantly embedded in your hand clots cuts for you.
...you can recite the densities of every material used on your robot.
...you don't need a manual to know what wire gauges are required for the various motors.
...you can accurately guess the size of something down to 1/16".
...your hand feels akward without a drill in it.
...your computer's desktop is filled with all the drawings for your robot.
...you always carry a pad of graph paper with you in case you get an idea for the robot.
...your average response time to an email about programming is less than 30 minutes.
...you spend 200+ hours writing software tools for robotics in the off-season.
...you have an RC, an OI, and a box of old motors in your room for testing stuff.

[hacksaw692]

When you are named after a tool.

When people outside of FIRST address you by said tool-name.

When said tool name goes into senior quote/sig.

When you make a quiz to pick the field coach and human player without looking once at the manual.

When you are disappointed at said quiz because the quiz taker got less than 95% right.

When people claim that FIRST is your passion.

When you force your closest friends to join the team.

When you doodle design sketches in class.

When you the manual becomes your bible.

When you get nervous and figity because you are away from the robot.

When you get excited whenever your english teacher (or some other teacher) even remotely mentions something about robotics.

When you force every conversation you have with other people outside of FIRST towards robotics.

When all you have to talk about with your dad anymore is the robot.

When you have an urge to bring the robot home because you haven't yet finished a certain component but it's time to call it a night.

[sevisehda]

...machining oil and aluminum chips become pizza toppings.

[Lord Nerdlinger]

when the people at the local hardware store know you by name and welcome you back everday.

[T967]

When you don't care that, "hey my hands are covered in oil and aluminum, maybe I shouldn't eat that slice of pizza."

When you realize that the First updates will never e n d and your response to one is yelling and moaning. (13 updates! come on give us a break!!!! Please!)

You can get cut by cardboard but not extremely hot, and sharp, flying aluminum shards.

When you get tired of the 200 track mp3 cd.

You no longer have a full name, just a NEW, one sylable, type name.

[Francis-134]

-when you are seen mumbling incoherently about the robot while you draw a design on an etch-a-shetch

-when you become a member of RA (Robotics anonymous)

[FAKrogoth]

. . . you consistently find aluminum shavings in your shower drain

. . . you compare drilling scars with your friends

[Specialagentjim]

- When you can relate ANYTHING back to robotics
ex. Our technology program just moved into a new building at our school. The floor was supposed to be all tile, but our robotics room has a special 8 foot by 8 foot (I think 8 foot..) square carpeted area for the robot. While sitting in english you suddenly have the urge to design a tether arm to extend out from the wall to come out over the robot, allowing for tethered robot control and power from an AC transformer so you don't have to change batteries while testing, and dropping down a flashlight to look inside the crevices of the bot, all without tangling up the robot by using a tension holding reel mechanism desgined by you and the lead programmer for the team...

- When your current choice of music was inspired from robotics 4 years ago (In 7th grade, I was introduced to techno through robotics competitions and animations...now techno makes up most of my playlists )

[RobDeCotiis]

...when you tape a whiteboard w/ marker above your bed so you can write down your idea when you get one in the middle of the night

...when your teachers start asking you why you're not skipping class to work on the robot..

...when you spend time thinking up reasons you're addicted to FIRST...

...when you build the bot AND animate(i did that last year and the year before).. get home at 10 after building, and stay up until the next day animating... repeat daily.