What's the dumbest thing you've ever done, related to FIRST?

[Matt Ryan]

Originally posted by EddieMcD
I call this story "The Fallen Superman".

The year is 2000. The place is our HQ at an undisclosed location on the Newport RI Navy Base. More specifically, the field we built. Anyhow, my common way of getting from one side of the field to the other was leaping Superman-esk, extending myself, and swinging off the bar (actually, I was also able to walk under without hitting my head, but that's not the point). So one time, in front of a group of girls, I did my leap, and extened myself. Unfortunately, the swinging off the bar never happened. I missed and, fully extended, hit the ramp front-first.

Well, the girls got a good laugh, and I did as well after I caught my breath. Now if that's not making myself look idiotic, I don't know what is.

Why do things like these have to happen in front of people?

[Jestin McCarthy]

No comment.

[Elgin Clock]

Originally posted by Elgin Clock
Ummm... There was a little incident with a Disney monorail that I started on the Sunday after the Nationals last year....

Jess....Do you want to tell this story for me??? I don't want to tell it for fear of reprocusions from possibly affected FIRST teams!

"I don't care if they're late for their planes; we're not going to be late and that's all that counts"!!!!

Taken From another post recited by Jessica Boucher:

"::sigh:: Elgin was our "responsible adult chaperone" our last day in FL...and we were on the monorail from Magic Kingdom to Epcot and he decided that he'd hold onto one of the top panelings, which proceeded to come loose in his hands (turns out it was the emergency exit, and if it had fallen any further, the alarm wouldve tripped)...soooo, he had to hold it up alllll the way to Epcot...I wish I had my camera"

Then Jess and the other people I was with had to flag down an attendant when we got to the next terminal and he had to come in and fix the monorail. That caused a bit of a traffic jam resulting in ~4 monorails being held up that day.

So I'm sorry if anyone here was in one of those monorails that was stuck on Sunday last year!!!

[JVN]

things like these happen all the time, but it's only the stuff that happens in front of people that you hear about.
If you did the "falling superman" by yourself alone, would you ever admit to it??

[smokescreen]

Stupidest thing is to come up with a custom control instead of joysticks. For the 1999 game, fiberglass molds were we a makin, and bowling alley wax were we a sniffin. Not smart.

Oh, yeah, there was also that one time where someone blew up the robot.

[SuperJake]

On the way to the Philly Alliance Regional in 2000, I was driving a Suburban full of my team mates, one of the engineers was sitting shotgun navagation. If you've ever come at Philly from the south, you take I-76 into the city, as we were this day. Between 6:30am and 7:30am is rush-hour, and it was currently about 6:50am.
Ahead of me was gridlocked, so I stopped with a comfortable space between me and the van infront of me. The group I hauled that day tends to listen to loud music... who doesn't when they are surrounded by a bunch of teenage robotics members?? Let's just say that it the music was so loud I Couldn't hear the screaching of the tires behind me, and the base was so heavy that I didn't feel the bump, either. The gridlock cleared up, and I began to pull away when the engineer next to me said, "Hold on a minute, Jake, I think we've just been in an accident."
So I stopped, put the 4-way flashers on, and got out to see what was going on. Sure enough, there was a little compact car that had been sandwiched between my Suburban and a Mini-Van. To my dismay, the occupants of the Mini-Van were all members of my team.
If you were in that traffic jam (and I know some people were, 'cause we were asked if we saw the horrible traffic on the way in), I am sorry for the poor driving of some of the members of my team. Thankfully, driving a robot is much different than driving a car.

[Dave_222]

A miscivious engineer who is also the brother in law of our advisor and a couple of us students smuggeled a couple of water guns into the philladelphia regional last year. well when we were about to turn them on a fellow student our advisor came around the corner. needless to say we almost got kicked out of our hotel. Yes I am using my screen name instead of the real thing for fear of being reccognized.

[A. Leese]

Ok. I guess I may as well tell my same stupid story I've had to tell a million times and I'm sure you've all probably heard by now..

Freshman year at nationals I was with some of my team mates hanging out at the wrap party and we were like five minutes or somethign from curfew. Being the trusting person that I am (and lazy as well), I let my friend Bryce give me a piggy-back ride to the front of EPCOT. Well, after a while we saw an EPCOT worker coming towards us, probably to yell at us to stop, so he let me get off. Well, for some reason or another I fell and concked my head really hard on the brick ground. I thought I was fine but then my head really started to hurt. That same EPCOT lady saw me fall and came over. Soon she had called over several of her co-workers who in turn first had my friend Rishan call our adult sponsor back at the hotel tehn called the Disney paramedics. I felt so dumb. They asked me all sorts of dumb questions to see if I was with it, but I had no clue what was going on. They figured out I was fine to go and stuff but I was totally scared. I had to have two people help me walk to the bus back to the hotel because I was so dizzy. To this day I still don't trust Bryce, even though I know it wasn't his fault any more than it was mine.
(This whole incident explains why last year I randomly stopped and stood at one place at EPCOT..that was where I fell..it's kinda creepy)

[volleygrrl234]

this is more of a team embarrassment.. Qasim decided to get up and dance around at the Chicago regional and he preceeded to lose his wallet.. Woody called him up in front of everyone and gave it to him and he procedded to act like a moron. He also did this at nationals.... but we set him up for that one!

[Carolyn Duncan]

Originally posted by dlavery


Gee, Carolyn, I didn't know that you remembered...

-dave (still feeling VERY guilty that you got sucked in as a relatively innocent bystander - after all, it was targeted at Alisha and Joanne!)

How could any of us forget???? That was the worst experience ever! It wasn't even the prank that was bad, we got you really well and that I'm proud of because I was the one directing the shooter ! Yup, I admit it. The bad part was everything after that. You did get us well to though... Anyway, note to anyone else who may be considering pranks for any competitions, make sure you stay in control of the prank or you will get busted.

[EddieMcD]

Originally posted by SuperJake
Thankfully, driving a robot is much different than driving a car.

Yeah, you're not in it.

[dlavery]

Originally posted by Carolyn Duncan

How could any of us forget???? That was the worst experience ever! It wasn't even the prank that was bad, we got you really well and that I'm proud of because I was the one directing the shooter ! Yup, I admit it. The bad part was everything after that. You did get us well to though... Anyway, note to anyone else who may be considering pranks for any competitions, make sure you stay in control of the prank or you will get busted.

I give you full credit for what was a most excellent shot. And how J.R. managed to get me completely soaked without a single drop touching anyone else, while I was standing in the middle of a crowd of people, impresses me to this day.

-dave

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Try to live your life as if you have to prove that real life is stranger than fiction.

[AdamT]

Cheers to JR...

I think I'm glad that some of your students helped you say that your laptop was ruined. I think you and the rest would have gotten at least one more bucket. Ahhh, memories.

And to continue on Carolyn's. Remember if you prank someone, don't prank Dave Lavery. He will get you back, and ten times worse!

[Carolyn Duncan]

Originally posted by 401Mentor
Cheers to JR...
And to continue on Carolyn's. Remember if you prank someone, don't prank Dave Lavery. He will get you back, and ten times worse!

I think 10 times is a bit of an understatement... Just know it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaay worse than you get him!

[dlavery]

Originally posted by Carolyn Duncan

I think 10 times is a bit of an understatement... Just know it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaay worse than you get him!

Hmmm. Why do I suddenly feel a tickling at the back of my neck, like I am being set up?

-dave

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Life is short. Play hard. - Nike

Life is short. Doesn't that stink? -dave