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

[DanLevin247]

...when FIRST is the major reason why you want to become an engineer

...When you've had strep throat for a week and a half, but haven't had time to go to the doctors to get some medicine, because you've been to busy with robotics.

[Specialagentjim]

Originally posted by illumanat'i

- when one of your sponsors buys a seguaway and brings it to your school (that was MAD fun, i mean, $@#$@#$@#$@#!)

- when the school forbids you from skipping classes because teachers start to complain

- when your parents begin to understand what your talking about

Point a.) Our SCHOOL is attempting to buy two segways!
Point b.) Yeah... I've had teachers ban me from gettting pulled out..and others that just said before I asked that I could go.
Point c.) Parents understanding...yeah...that means that you've been working at home too much..like me..


- also, you know you've been in FIRST too long when your main focus on building a new computer is to cut down render time for teh animation comepetition.

[Raven_Writer]

optimization is to hard in animation really.

- when they all know the songs from the pits, when the songs aren't played anywhere else

[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.

[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

[Danielle H]

Originally Posted by Vincent Chan

...you're seen carrying power tools around school.

Does duct tape count as a power tool? It's certainly more powerful than most of the other stuff we use...

-When you have a week between Regionals and you decide to meet every night after school.
-you have teachers that tell you "You need to go home, I swear you're here 24/7." (Then again, I'm in drama and Indoor Precussion too.)
-you know for a fact you're giving up drama and indoor percussion next year(or insert other activity here) to spend all your time with Robotics
-you try to think of any possible way to get home a tad early from the Boilermaker Regional so you can still go
-You seriously consider running away from home to a Robotics competition
-you seriously consider asking Chief Delphi people that you don't know to hitch a ride back to G-field early Saturday morning, though you know it won't work
-you're sad that you can't go to any of the competitions, and are being pessimistic about being able to attend IRI
-You ponder for hours on end about how to get your team to Atlanta, because you all really want to go

[edit] Hah.. just experienced this one...
-When you want to go somewhere else on the web, you automatically open up another window entirely so you can stay logged on to Chief Delphi [/edit]

[Michelle Celio]

Originally Posted by Danielle H

Hah.. just experienced this one...
-When you want to go somewhere else on the web, you automatically open up another window entirely so you can stay logged on to Chief Delphi

Or when you use firefox and when you first come to chief delphi, you open each thread you want to read in a new tab and you land up with 15+ tabs.

[mtaman02]

You know your addicted to FIRST when.....

you decide to go to a local regional right after work and got lost in the process but was determined to get there reguardless of how much gas was in the tank.

This was a true incident Short and Simple Version.
I work in the BX (NY) decided to go to the NJ Regional The trip itself was pre determined to be max 1 1/2 hrs and I had a lil over 1/2 a tank of gas. What had happened was i wasn't paying ENOUGH attention to the exits and ended up in PA, so instead of the trip only being 1 1/2 hrs it ended up to be 4 hrs and I ended up in having a lil over 1/4 tank left and to add to that instead of fueling up in NJ where gas is cheaper I almost ran out of gas 2 blocks away from my house which only took me about an 1 hr to get to since I live in SI (NY) What I do for FIRST =)

you re-read the entire thread starting from where you last posted to the current post to see what you've missed

[anna~marie]

When people in your household are afraid to walk barefoot or in socks because they have stepped on metal shavings that you have accidently taken home from the shop... many times...

[thatphotochick]

when you sneak on the library's computer just to talk about FIRST with people you actually might understand you...without having to compare FIRST to basketball