Pranks on Coaches

[Spiffizzle]

I don't know about anyone else, but our team has some jokes on our coach.

On π Day, our coach threw out a few christmas light decoration reindeer. We all watched as he threw them into the dumpster from the windows. One of our members stated, "Those are so coming back up here." From there, we brought them back up to his room and hung them up, making them look like they were pulling a tetra with signs saying Happy π Day!

Just look:


Anyone else have a story about a prank on a coach?

[JoeXIII'007]

I think it was West Michigan Regional of 2004, which almost always falls on April Fools Day.

It was on that day, that some of my teammates decided to scheme with the inspectors that we'd fake a failed inspection to one of our lead mentors/coaches.

So we begin with our entire team surrounding the robot, looking like something is up. The coach comes up, starts getting a little worried, and starts wondering what the heck is going on here. The inspector starts telling him some fake problems, and then eventually writes on a spare sheet "APRIL FOOLS." Once he figured that out, a smile was immediate, and we all laughed along with him.

[George A.]

In 2004 at the Palmetto Regional it was April Fools Day and we were working extremely well during practice matches.. While our mentor was at lunch a couple students decided to go up to him and say "Don't mean to worry you, but we were testing our arm in the pit and the joysticks weren't trimmed properly...so the robot fell off the cart and smashed on the floor...we're totally inoperable"


Needless to say his face was priceless.

[Lisa Perez]

I was field coach last year, and happened to be very tired at Championships. We were all just sitting around, and I had fallen asleep. My drive team decided to drip water on my knee, and I woke up, freaking out and thinking I had had an accident...

[Bemis]

My team did strange things to me as a slept in the lobby at the pittsburgh regional before pitts opened one day. They have pictures, and I look very stupid.

[The Lucas]

2 Stories both take place at Nats in Disney:
In 2001, We silly-stringed our coach while he was sleeping. We stayed in villas which make these types of pranks easier than in hotel rooms. He booby trapped his bedroom ever since.

In 2002, The comp team and I where eating at the Chinese restaurant in Epcot. Later, a large group of MOE members including our coach sat at a table near the door.

We asked our waiter to print 2 copies of our bill and give one to the other MOE group. After overcoming the language barrier and convincing him that they we knew them (bright green jerseys are good for something,) he was in and excited about the prank. We paid our bill and walked past their table as the waiter was asking them to pay our bill. I can still remember them yelling "Where are you walking?!" as we made our way to the door.

I snapped a picture, but they were too mad to notice. They found out it was a prank when the entire kitchen staff started laughing at them.

[mtaman02]

Can't say that I "myself" played a prank on my robotics teachers I mean yeah there was some times were I had caught them red handed.

In 2001 Me and a couple of members caught the robot electrician chewing on a seatbelt coming back from Bash at the Beach.

In 2002 a couple of members found the lead programmer asleep one nite and thought it be quite funny to gather some empty food tray and place it on his bed with him to make it look like he had over eaten.

In 2003 and 2004 I managed to get 2 pictures in different places of one of the head builders taking a quick nap what was funny was he fell asleep in the same position both times almost as if he hadn't moved at all.

2005 and 2006 nothing as of yet too pre-occupied with work and volunteering at FIRST Regionals to really notice anything to take advantage of.

ah the good ol days

[Bcahn836]

At the 2004 Chesapeake Regional the team had told the announcers that it was one of our mentors 60th birthday. For one it wasn't his birthday and second he is in his 30's. So when he heard this and walked to the pits the entire team was waiting for him and sang happy birthday. ahhh good times good times.

[Kel D]

When I was on the Firebirds, we used to go to this dollar store down the street when we were working on the robot after school and a few of us got these ridiculous huge earrings. Well, our mentor, Mr. Foell, saw us all wearing these earrings and joked that he was sad that he didn't get a pair too. So, of course, we bought him a nice pair of light-up clip on earrings because we felt bad that he was left out. He laughed at us when we gave them to him but he told us that he would wear the earrings if we qualified for the Championship event at the Palmetto regional. Well, we didn't exactly qualify but we put up a heck of a fight so we come out of the hotel the day we were flying home and he has the earrings on!! He wore them all the way home from South Carolina to Philadelphia! He got a few strange looks, but we absolutely loved him for it! So I am not sure who that was a prank on, I'm thinking that the prank was on us.

[KenWittlief]

A couple years ago I took a button with the cover missing and wrote "MIKE BRAUN FAN CLUB" on it with a sharpie. I gave it to a student on another team and asked him to:

1. put the button on
2. go over to Mike (pointed him out in the pits)
3. Tell him that its awesome to meet him in person
4. give the button to someone else with the same instructions.

I dont know how many students from various teams did this all afternoon, but by the end of the day he had no idea why he was so famous at the Buckeye regional.

[lukevanoort]

Well, at VCU this year we came expecting an easy Thursday, our scales read ~100lbs back home, but we new they read a bit off, so we figured about 110. Well, we were 135lbs, so we went on the MC Hammer diet. At the end of Thursday, after everybody had left, we went to the scales, where we finally were under weight at 118.8. I kept the team and the robot there to use the sizing device, so we got back to the pit a bit later than expected, with "sad" looks on our face. Then I told our main engineering mentor that we were 124... what he said I can't really post up here, then I revealed him that we were kidding. Well, we found it very funny, he didn't, maybe because was to relieved to laugh.

[Arefin Bari]

This afternoon, my kids started blowing up my phone while I was at work. I finally answer my phone and my driver tells me that we fried our robot controller. Well, he sounded really worried over the phone so I suggested him to calm down and when I get there we will take care of it. I left work about 15 minutes afterwards, and got to the school. They were adding few little things on the robot and then the teacher was like, "let's test it again." My driver falls on the floor laughing. My kids know that the only thing that can stress me out during the build season is if something goes wrong with the robot and they took full advantage of that. Afterwards my driver tells me, "This is what you get for calling at 10 at night and telling me that our robot weighs 138 pounds when it really weighs 98 pounds." I hate my freaking kids.

[JBotAlan]

Well, for our mentor's birthday, we each chipped in a dollar, which was then rolled into a tight roll and tied with a ribbon. All of them (I don't remember how many, but it was the same number as how many years he's got under his belt... ) were then thrown into a large bag of confetti...when he realized it, he ended up picking through the confetti piece-by-piece to make sure he got all of it...

Also, we have this running joke that two of our mentors are pedophiles...long story... The girls on the team told each one of the "pedophile" mentors that if they pay more money than the other, that the other one will get a cookie with "(name) is a pedophile" on it (there was a place that made giant cookies with words in frosting on them). What they said they were going to do and what they actually did were two different things...they combined the money they got from the two mentors and got a giant cookie with the text "(name) and (name) love children", presenting it to them just before we left the venue...good times.

Then there's the time we tackled one of our mentors and painted his fingernails...

It's a wonder our mentors stay with the team at all...

JBot

[program1]

once on our programming computer i made a fake "blue screen of death" just for fun, the team came in afterward and everyone freaked out, they were going to call tech support when they noticed i was laughing.

they didn't trust me next to the computer for a week

[Vince lau]

i got saran wrapped to a pillar one year well i guess it was because when one of the students was wrapping up the crate by running around it on carpet every time she passed me I would shock her