Practical Jokes in FIRST

[SushaK]

so we all know that FIRST is all about Gracious Professionalism and coopertition... but what happens when coopertition goes a step further when you joke with an incoming freshman or any other teammate and they actually believe you? today i heard a joke about the left handed screw driver that an older teammate asked a freshman to bring him... the poor guy went around several pits asking for one until finally someone told him there is no such thing...

so lets use this forum to share funny but friendly stories and jokes that were played on people in FIRST

[youngWilliam14]

this is the one mentioned above

this past season at the buckeye regional, i decided that for my senior year i was going to prank one freshman. i went up to him after opening ceremonies and said: "look, i've got about twenty things to get done, and we forgot to bring a left handed screwdriver. i NEED a left handed screwdriver, can you find one for me? just go around to all the other pits and ask for one. thanks!" once i had convinced him that i absolutely had to have one, i went back to our pits to finish up some electronics work. he came back a few times and told me that no one had one, so i asked if he'd asked every team yet, upon which he'd go to ask a few more teams. eventually one of my team mates wondered why i was laughing so hard, and i let our coach in on it. after about 15-30 minutes after i'd initially asked for the mythical item, we explained to him exactly what was going on. needless to say, i want to get that kid a real left handed screwdriver at the end of his senior season

don't worry, i know he's only trying not to laugh when we bring it up

[EricH]

That's a pretty standard one-- metric crescent wrenches, non-ferrous magnets, and left-handed screwdrivers (and the occasional flux capacitor) are asked for at the Pit Admin from time to time.

My favorite, though, on my team involved a dirty rubber disk of some kind. We'd hold it like it was metal and therefore heavy and tell an unsuspecting freshman, "Here, catch!" just before tossing it their way.

[ZInventor]

weneeded longer leads on the robot side of the andersen connector, and we had to send the wire out to get "streched"... as a joke, the mentor first brought back a really thin, light colored set of wires that really looked like they'd been streched, and some of the new kids on the team stood in awe... untill they found out what was going on...

said mentor then returned to the "wire stretcher" and got a new wire, the correct guage, but still with stressed looking insulation!

-Z

[Chris is me]

Waiting for alliance selection on Newton Field this year, some of us representatives were talking about having someone announce that they lost The Game on stage. I wasn't going to do it, but I was really hoping someone else would, that would have been classic.

[youngWilliam14]

Originally Posted by EricH

That's a pretty standard one-- metric crescent wrenches, non-ferrous magnets, and left-handed screwdrivers (and the occasional flux capacitor) are asked for at the Pit Admin from time to time.

My favorite, though, on my team involved a dirty rubber disk of some kind. We'd hold it like it was metal and therefore heavy and tell an unsuspecting freshman, "Here, catch!" just before tossing it their way.

lol, nice

[afowl]

At Monty Madness this year during alliance selections I was with our team in the stands watching Aashay, one of our head scouters and my friend, talking to the other representatives on the field. Then we decided it would be a good idea to give him a few calls. Every time one of us called him he'd look up and laugh when he finally answered the phone and i yelled, "Don't talk on your phone while you're on the field!" The look on his face was priceless.

[Wayne Doenges]

My favorite one I do as a Robot Inspector is to tell a rookie team that their robot is too light and that they need to add weight.

[Molten]

Originally Posted by Wayne Doenges

My favorite one I do as a Robot Inspector is to tell a rookie team that their robot is too light and that they need to add weight.

Now, that one seems just a bit cruel.

BTW: If you do it at Boilermaker sometime, look me up. I want to be nearby.

[EricH]

Nah, the cruel one is to weigh the robot with the battery.

Then again, one rookie at L.A. did that by mistake and could have probably weighed with bumpers as well--and still passed.

[youngWilliam14]

one year when we got inspected we were 0.1 lb overweight. then i reached in, hit the air release valve, and we were 0.1 lb under

[demosthenes2k8]

OK, now that's epic.

We do so much to one teammate that it's not even funny...I believe she thought that China was in South America at one point!

A fun-but mean-one is, when demoing a robot, wait until someone walks by and just make the robot twitch a bit-not enough to move, but enough to make noise. It scares the crap out of them, especially when they think it's off!

[youngWilliam14]

Originally Posted by demosthenes2k8

A fun-but mean-one is, when demoing a robot, wait until someone walks by and just make the robot twitch a bit-not enough to move, but enough to make noise. It scares the crap out of them, especially when they think it's off!

it's not really a mean one. i do that to little kids all the time and they always start giggling

[Akash Rastogi]

Anything funny can be achieved with a little Loctite.

[youngWilliam14]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Anything funny can be achieved with a little Loctite.

during boilermaker this past year, our driver had been working with loctite during the morning. the following quote comes from lunch:

"Mmm, what's this stuff on my hands that tastes so good?... Oh my god, it LOCTITE!"

and this is how kids develop loctite addictions