What have you given up for FIRST?

[Joe Matt]

-Any chance of a girlfriend in high school.
-The ability to be "cool".
-Respect wheneven someone says 'Gali' I say 'leo'.
-Time, money, & sleep.

I've also lost:
-Self doubt
-Any questions about what I want to do with the rest of my life

[The Cyborg]

I have lost:

-Free Time
-Marching Band
-Sanity

And have gained:

-A new life to look forward to


Isnt it wonderful?

[greencactus3]

Originally Posted by JosephM

-Any chance of a girlfriend in high school.
-The ability to be "cool".
-Respect wheneven someone says 'Gali' I say 'leo'.
-Time, money, & sleep.

I've also lost:
-Self doubt
-Any questions about what I want to do with the rest of my life

cool?? if you're involved in FIRST, that automatically makes you cool!!!
aand of course, a robot can always be your girl. xcept for the fact you need to share lol

[Liz Smith]

Originally Posted by JosephM

-Any chance of a girlfriend in high school.
-The ability to be "cool".
-Respect wheneven someone says 'Gali' I say 'leo'.
-Time, money, & sleep.

I've also lost:
-Self doubt
-Any questions about what I want to do with the rest of my life

Hey, robotics brought me closer to my boyfriend. Probably because we both do robotics so we ended up spending massive amounts of time together. But... I did lose sanity, sleep and money.

[dubious elise]

i'm slowly relinquishing my tennis tournament season (but not without a fight!) and darn near all of my free time goes straight into robotics work.

but the friendships, experience, and knowledge that i have gained all far outweighs anything that i may have lost

[Tytus Gerrish]

Free Time

[Joe Matt]

Originally Posted by greencactus3

cool?? if you're involved in FIRST, that automatically makes you cool!!!
aand of course, a robot can always be your girl. xcept for the fact you need to share lol

Notice it was in quotes, as in what they think is cool.

[karinka13]

Personally, when I look at everything I've gained from FIRST robotics, I can't think of anything I've had to give up for it. I mean sure, I've had to skip out of Glee Club and play rehearsals, but trust me, that's a good thing when you have my school's music director. I've given up time when I could be studying or doing homework, but hey, which one would you choose? And I always get by without struggling. I gave up being in the drama club last year, class time, lunch time, afternoons, and plenty of other stuff. But I love doing it, so it doesn't even seem like giving anything up. To me, it's a gift to be able to go down to the basement and drive the robot around instead of sitting in a cold chair and singing some new song for a concert. It's absolutely worth every speck of time and effort I put into it, and that's why I love it. At the end of the season, I don't breathe a sigh of relief to have time for myself again, but wonder what I'm going to do without being able to vent all my anger out through an unfortunate piece of wood and the power drill.

[CmptrGk]

i know that all ive give up for first is sleep becasue i never did any thing before.

[JakeGallagher]

Originally Posted by JosephM

-Any chance of a girlfriend in high school.
-The ability to be "cool".
-Respect wheneven someone says 'Gali' I say 'leo'.
-Time, money, & sleep.

I've also lost:
-Self doubt
-Any questions about what I want to do with the rest of my life

Girlfriend? Who needs one of them? All they want is your time and money! LOL jk. I had a girlfriend through FIRST, and that was fun. I mean we were always together and we always had stuff to talk about. Sadly, we broke up and team meetings have been really awkward since, but oh well. lol.
Secondly, cool is in the eye of the beholder. I remember back in 2003 when I was just my team's newb runner boy. But I thought it was the coolest thing ever, just being on a team where it didn't matter who I was...I was only a runner, but I was still just happy to be there where people accepted me. On that note, Sparky and CRT were the coolest two groups of people on the planet to me back then. Why? Those guys helped us get to nationals through Annapolis. If your signature isn't misleading, I think you're from Sparky, right?
Third. GALI! Dude. Who cares what jokes you're in on? All that matters is that it's all in good fun, right?
As for time, money, and sleep, those are part of the payment package for everything you get from FIRST: friends, confidence, pride in yourself and your team, knowlege, and above all, a good time. Need I say more?

[Dorienne]

I've gained more than I've lost, but here are some things I gave up.
a) Tae Kwon Do (which I loved...)
b) free time with friends on weekdays and nights
c) time to do homework (haha...)
d) job(s)
e) erm..."coolness" or whatever..like I care...FIRST is cool! =D
And I've gained so much more, honestly. These things I could easily have given up..well, except for the first one. That's kinda hard to deal with. =( But oh well, this is so beneficial for me I don't mind I gave those things up. Though I do need a job to make myself unlazy...Hehe.

[Jay TenBrink]

Sadly, I have given up some of the time I should have spent with my daughter. This was several years ago. Nonetheless, she was hurt and for that I still feel some pain even now. For the last several years our relationship has been very good and we have made time to spend with each other. I share this personal information with you so perhaps you can learn from it and avoid making the same mistake that I did when I did not have the proper balance in my life (family/work/community/FIRST, etc.)

In the past 4 years I have given a very substantial amount of my time and energy to FIRST. I have spent a lot of quality time with many different students from my own team and others. I believe I have been a positive influence in their lives and I feel richer for having known each and every one of them.

[phrontist]

my life; # Number of FIRST season's I'm involved in
for(life = 0; 42 = 42; life++) {
GPA = GPA - (1/2)(life)
}

[KelliV]

What haven't I given up... I eat sleep and breathe FIRST. I quit the Varstiy cheerleading squad that I was the captin of, do not try out for plays, I no longer eat dinner at the normal hours, I don't get to bed on time at all, I wake up early, I dont hang out with people other than FIRSTers, I spend time watching old FIRST videos, I never see my family, during the season my few non-FIRST friends, that DOES include my boyfriend, do not talk to me becuase all they get is babbling about crabs and BUPODs and everything else that goes with FIRST, and my sanity also.
Even though I have given all of this up what I have gained these past few years have outweighed it by a long shot. I have gained a sense of belonging, teamwork, friendship, and not to mention everything I have learned about the real world of engineering from my fabulous mentors from Motorola. FIRST is the best thing that happened to me... I would give up anything and everything for it.
-Kelli with an "i"

['lil Gach]

Hmmm what have I given up for FIRST? well if you count the times that I dont see my family anymore, or the time I had to miss going to my sisters college. The lack of sleep I get ( even more during the actually season!). The times that I have to leave a volleyball, gymnastics or waterpolo practice or game early. There are also those times that I eat dinner at 8:45 ish and I havent eatten since 12.... There is also this thing called homework that is my last choice ( but homework isnt fun anyways so it doesnt matter!)

Would I change my life? NO way!!!!! I love FIRST!!!!!!!! I love the nights of stress! I love the being around the FIRST people! (even though during build season it is a very very stressful time!) I have learned so much from this program. I have been in it for 2 years and watched my brother competitions for the 2 years before I was in the program, and it was soooooooo awsome!!!! I have learned a bunch from our Motorola engineers! They are soo awsome. They are always there to answer a question you have. It could be about anything, college, homework questions, what subteam to be on, how was your weekend, and any other random question you might have they will answer it!

So if you would ask me what would I give up for FIRST... I would give up a life time for FIRST! If I had a chance to change my life I wouldnt change it one bit!

~Tiffany ('lil gach)