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

[MichelB]

Your signature is so true...when you miss your FIRST team more than your friends :'(

[MichelB]

Originally Posted by sst.thad

When you go to put a period at the end of a sentence and you put a semi-colon instead;

Ahhh, the wonderful C++ semi-colons, what would we do without them? ;

[MichelB]

When you just realized you spent your entire accounting class reading and replying to this thread, have replied to waaaaay too many things, and the stuff in this thread is so familiar and makes you miss your old team so much that your crying in class.

[Trey178]

When you have already graduated college, but STILL line dance with the students during competitions

[Woolly]

When your morning shower consists of you thinking of hypothetical FRC games for the upcoming year.

[Whippet]

... When it's 11:30 at night, you need to be awake in five hours to make it to the non-local kickoff, and you're still here, browsing Chief Delphi, with no sleep in sight for at least three more hours.

[crafty]

...You're marrying a guy you met from another FIRST team during high school and spending your honeymoon at an FRC regional with the team you mentor.

[Qcom]

When you see pool noodles as impact dampeners, not flotation devices.

[JesseK]

... you select locker numbers at your gym based upon FRC team numbers you know so that you can remember which locker is yours.

Last night was the Truck Town, 68.
Several times were Hammand 71, Poofs 254, or PINK 233.
Epsilon Delta 116 always seems to be taken, for whatever reason.

[bEdhEd]

When your favorite time of the day is when the clock reads your team number.
Great! it's 7:01

Too bad for the teams past 1259 unless you roll with the 24 hour clock, then it's 2359

[MechEng83]

you wish they didn't cancel school for the weather because you can't meet when school is cancelled.

[Woolly]

You haven't seen your team in a couple of weeks due to being in college, and you have nightmares about them building a robot that can't consistently score in the high goal, yet tries anyway.

[Grey Mann]

You can look at a robot and write down every single part used to build it within 5 minutes.

[Cyborg Mustang]

You don't buy lunch for a week so you can save the money for a non-broken jaguar.

[MichelB]

Originally Posted by crafty

...You're marrying a guy you met from another FIRST team during high school and spending your honeymoon at an FRC regional with the team you mentor.

Gotta say, thats really sweet

[ianawesome]

-When you haven't bathed for 12 days.

[starbound1332]

When your always on Chief Delphi!

[jyaple]

When you ask your mom for a left handed crescent wrench for your birthday.

[KarenH]

Originally Posted by jyaple

When you ask your mom for a left handed crescent wrench for your birthday.

Do they make such a thing?

[Canon reeves]

when you know all the teams going to your regional, when you can't sleep because all you do is think about your robot and designs and competition, when all you think about is strategy for the game and talk to a random stranger about it and go on for 30 minutes talking about FIRST.

[jyaple]

Originally Posted by KarenH

Do they make such a thing?

No, but it's funny to send first year FRC members looking for it in the back room where we keep the tools.

[Msumat17]

when you find aluminum shavings in your iPhone case

[Rob269]

...when you start asking yourself "What do normal people do on Saturday?"

[Grey Mann]

You no longer have pupils.

[ToddF]

Your wife asks you what you want to do for your birthday, and you say, "Let's get dinner and see a movie."

But, what you're really thinking is, "I want to work on the robot with the team."

After build season you have this dream. (Yes I actually had this dream this morning.)

Queue up Twilight Zone music:

You just have regained consciousness; it's Thursday morning in the pits. You can't find your pit, when you finally find the pit the robot is still in the bag and nobody from your team can be found. When you get the robot un-bagged. It appears to be almost completely un-assembled. As you frantically try to put it all together it appears to exceed the frame perimeter by at least 400% and weight by 100lbs. With a sinking feeling you realize you will never, ever pass inspection this season.

I am hoping this nightmare isn't someone else's real past life experience I am channeling. I think I have a new psychological disorder. I am calling it "FPRBTSD(FIRST Post Robotic Build Traumatic Stress Disorder)" The only cure is a big dose of FIRST.


.... and after Robert Palmer, if your dreams are like this ....

You better well face it, you're addicted to FIRST.

[Canon reeves]

When you seriously don't know what normal people do in their free time, and so you spend hours after school making to do lists for competition and posting on Chief Delphi.

[adammiller3122]

Originally Posted by Emily_2337

... When you skip out on a family outing to go to a robotic demo for your team

I do that all of the time

[starbound1332]

In my English class, when I have to write about an certain experience you had in your life, I write about how our team won Chairman's!

[xXhunter47Xx]

When your friends question if you have a life outside of robotics
When you start dreaming on how to better the robot in both programming and the 45 lb allotment.
When you start predicting what the next game is going to be.
When you start designing a robot for that game.

[cgmv123]

Originally Posted by starbound1332

In my English class, when I have to write about an certain experience you had in your life, I write about how our team won Chairman's!

Try having the only thing you feel able to write about in English class be robotics. I put the over/under on 2 papers before my English teacher makes me choose a different topic.

[adammiller3122]

Originally Posted by Katie Reynolds

... When you wish for a snow day, not so you won't have school, but so you'll have extra time to work on your robot!!

My school won't let us work on the bot if we have a snow day... all activities are cancelled

[adammiller3122]

Originally Posted by Rhs953

-You try to make a robotics class. (soon very soon)

That would be sooooo cool!!! Yay FIRST!

[MarcD79]

With already signed up & verified for 3 district events, you look for more to attend/volunteer on your Sundays, even though you are working your normal job on Saturdays.

[CaptainDanger]

Originally Posted by Jeff_Rice

When you seriously consider taking the robot to Prom

It's definitely happening

[MichelB]

When you relate everything to build season, or FIRST and your friends get annoyed with your references they don't understand.

[Koko Ed]

you're willing to risk your life to go to a competition.

[jyaple]

When you go on vacation and find out that there is a robotics competition there and beg your mom to go. (If anyone in Utah is going to the competition on Thursday, message me!! )

When these are a few of your "favorite things:"

1. The smell of ozone and thread tapping oil in the morning.
2. This hiss and crackle of a TIG welder as it lays down a perfect line of buttons.
3. The beautiful long aluminum ribbon coming off the lathe.
4. Pristine lines of code, code that can do anything from launch a mission to Mars or diagnose a fetal heartbeat.
5. The crunch of the crimper or the snap of the POP riveter.
6. The feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when the MC says - "Teams stand behind the line, ready, set.........."

[Ashley Hartley]

...you realize you've been around FIRST longer than you haven't.