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

[Aburame Shino]

...When you're walking around, see a random number, and can determine which FIRST team has that number.

[BluePotPie]

You have the Kickoff, Game animation, and the Transmission/Chassis videos on your iPod.

[alithanar8]

When your friends all leave you because you are so exhausted after building.

[Koko Ed]

When you are ALREADY breaking down the teams registered for the championship into divisions....

[mizscience]

...you can find a way to twist anything robotics related and make it sexual

[mystrdylan]

you stay up late to browse the McMaster-Carr catalog.

(That company is so cool, they have almost EVERY PART IMAGINABLE)

-Dylan 1722

[Marshall Tapp]

- if you go crazy when you leave your thumb drive at home.
- if you more of your team than your family in the past four weeks.
- if you can remember every detail of your robot, but have no clue where your mom is
when you get home.
- if you decide it is just easier to stay at school for the night than go home.

[Cody Carey]

If you have the choice between closing a mid-term essay that hasn't been saved or a Max presentation that was saved 5 minutes ago... and you close the essay

[DCA Fan]

If it's 3am, you really should be sleeping or doing homework, yet you check on ChiefDelphi for the latest news first.

[Artless_Grace]

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.

That is definately me..

-When, at the end of the day, you're scratching your head and a bolt falls out.

-When you shrug at the bolt casually and go back to work.

-Your cuticles are screaming for mercy.

-When you find yourself making rings out of metal tubing.

-When those rings are accompanied by duct tape.

-When you start a trend and this duct tape and metal becomes favored fashion.

-When aluminum shards become body glitter.

-When you drill and thread a hole in a school lunch table. It still.. wasn't me. >.>

-When you spend your friday and saturday nights expressing your woes to a bandsaw.

[Steve W]

When you have read all 1300 posts above you in a Chit-Chat thread.

[X-Istence]

Originally Posted by Steve W

When you have read all 1300 posts above you in a Chit-Chat thread.

Just finished

-- When your teachers wonder why you are in class
-- When physics homework suddenly seems a fun distraction

[Michelle Celio]

- when your mentors say "hey, no meeting Tuesday and Thursday, you kids need a break" you beg them for just one more meeting this week.

- when one of the mentors is your 1st period teacher, and every day that week before even saying hi to them, you ask them "Can we please have a meeting today"

- when you finally (almost) accept the fact that there is no meeting that night, you sign on and the only people on line are those from your team

- when your room actually gets cleaned because of the lack of meetings

- when you've posted on this thread several times and are still able to come up with unique things

- when you have this thread subscribed so you can read the new additions

[Joe J.]

-You remember posting in this thread 2 years ago..

-Your team's head mentor say the following about you: "Joe knows everything about the team, He knows more about the team than the team does."

-You work on your teams robot during 1st and 2nd hour in school.

-You have a "Big Black Binder of Everything Robotics"

-You have a personal team "Archive" going back 4 years

-You carry a full copy of the Game Manual around school from Kickoff till you team's last competition

-you have 3 of the top 5 highest annual Build Season Hours

-the ammount of hours you worked on the robot is HIGHER the the total number of hours the team met for.

[Rohith Surampudi]

- your grades drop a full letter grade during the season
- your teachers wonder why you are sleeping in their class with your head in a binder full of CAD drawings
- you beleive a sawsall and a roll of duct tape can fix anything
- you wonder if the sqeaking the car is making is beacause of a loose set screw
- you cant look at an allen screw without trying to decide to use if it is a 5/32 or 3/16 so that you can tighten it
- you have consumed at least a pound of sawdust while building the field




-a group of people that were once strangers became some of your best friends in 6 weeks