pic: Anyone Remember These?

[Travis Hoffman]

I refer to these as "SME badges" because you were required to register with the Society of Manufacturing Engineers on their website to obtain one.

I believe SME intended this to be a recruiting tool to gather a contact database of FIRST students and send them information designed to get them interested in their organization and manufacturing engineering in general. I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think they were satisfied with the level of response they were getting so they stopped sponsoring the badges. That, and too many mischievous people probably tried to use the system to get more than one (just who is "Poindexter Hoffman" anyway? Eh, I was young and dumb back then. Now I'm just plain dumb).:

Here's the 2001 application form.

2001 SME badge registration form

I always thought these were neat, and I still wear mine at competitions to this day. One cool thing SME did was to post multiple badge designs on their website and let people vote on their favorite:

http://web.archive.org/web/200112132...sme/index.html

I believe FIRST did require you to wear them to gain access to the team party and also to signify your attachment to the FIRST program in general as you were walking around Epcot and the parking lot in Florida. 2002 was the last year they had these badges. Ah, those were the days.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Yeah I still have mine. Well, half of it atleast. Out of spite my brother cut it in half. I so hate him. $10 to the FIRST one to beat him up (pun intended).

[tiffany34990]

i still have both of mine..lol.... intresting idea they had...was suppose to be u'r ticket to get into the after party...they all didn't arrive on time though

our mascot winston is registerd..so he wears all 3 cards..

[Jay H 237]

I still have two of them.

Originally Posted by Jessica Boucher

I remember when having a low number was the coolest thing ever...and then being really jealous of Colleen from 190 because she had an insanely low number since she signed up at Kickoff

The number on my cards is 8836.

[Tazlikesrobots]

I've got three of them....Still wear them at competition!

[Andrew Rudolph]

I still have 2 my 2001 one broke. Member number 4289

[mtaman02]

I still have mine hanging with my old team jacket from 2002 the year where they let the team members choose the design =) Member 23434

[Katie Reynolds]

Member 11849 here!

[Pin Man]

I have one from my freshman year... sooo long ago... whatever happened to them????

[Pamela]

#6592, they're all hanging on my lanyard of FIRST stuff!

I don't really know the purpose, just another cool thing to own back in the day. I remeber being excited about them, yet I don't reallllly know why.

[RogerR]

member #15838

i have it hanging on my wall along with a bunch of other FIRST stuff (from T-shirts to scoring objects to robot parts to...).