What are your Team Traditions?

I'm currently working on a secret project that I can't discuss at the moment, as the subject in question is also a user and may get curious as to what I keep posting about

As a hint, it involves Black&Decker tools.

I'm not going to say any more at this time.
Check back in a couple weeks to find out.

By the way, it's not a prank, for those of you who were inevitably wondering.


Thaine

[RandomStyuff]

Ok, well, we have a couple and many are just so normal to me I'm sure I'm missing some, but here is what we have:
(These are since the "New Spikes Age" started, which was our second year, seeing as we were re-rookiefied, our school didn't let former members of the team back on for some reason, except for one which continued coming even though he was told not to)

- Every year we take a marker and put a dot on the robot in a mini-ceremony. It's called the lucky dot, and the dotter has to be a certified dotter. This stems from a class tradition in my class in 10th grade, when we'd have a girl called Chen run around the class before tests and dot everyone's hand for luck. So far the only certified dotter is Chen, and she is leaving this year, so we need to start a certification proccess....

- The person leading our morales always comes to the competition wearing wings.

- The person leading our morales is always short and noisy (this includes the year before the "New Spikes" too)

- We have an ending ceremony every year, but so far it doesn't really have anything interesting

- On the last Friday before ship-date, our mentors buy us Chinese food.

- I don't think this is considered a tradition, but it kinda fits here too:
Every year our school shuts us down. Our school's administration decides we aren't worth the effort. Then after 2 months of lobbying they find us an impossible condition for keeping the team alive, thinking we won't be able to do it, and thus getting us off their backs. Every year, so far, we have managed. Then they decide that they still don't want the team, and then we get one of the sponsors to buy the KoP and registration without the school's approval, so that the school can't say no.
It's a game we have been playing with our school's administration for the past 4 years: at first it was only if you manage to get a major financial sponsor. Then it was only if you manage to get a technical sponsor with fabrication abilities. Now it's somehow we have to find a robotics teacher that will teach robotics in their school, but he can't be a former team member and WE have to pay his salary from OUR budget.... but, we've never failed so far....

[alicen]

not really a tradition, but still funny;

we have a lot of students who will come through the lab and leave their bookbags, then go somewhere else unrelated to robotics and the team. so if this person happens to be an important figure on the team (ahhem, our president) we drop a 5 or 10 pound weight in their bookbag

[Jared Russell]

Thanks for sharing, everyone. Lots of really cool ideas and awesome stories in this thread!

[ghizzle1168]

We have awesome Halo LAN parties at the hotels after competitions, one year we took the TVs from 4 of our rooms and put them into one for 8 vs. 8. It went all night and was pretty awesome. We also try to watch as many insane Japanese movies as we can. Team favorite is "Battle Royale". You should look it up.

[kgzak]

-we always put an extra victor on the electronics board
-me and another student never get to eat at competition (the one time we did we got in trouble )
-we go to a local restaurant after our last regional.

there is probably more that I am forgetting.

[Dominator1619]

No cutting metal until the start of week 4 (we are a student led team and mentors put in very little say about the robot. It's always about what the students want which is why this tradition always ends up happening. Good luck trying to get a bunch of high school students to agree on things in a timely manner)

The robot always has SARBEZ in it. This is a tribute to the school at which the team was founded which happens to have the Zebra as a mascot.

Everyone signs the robot on the first day of the first compition. The more years you've put in, the higher up the list you are to sign the robot.

We always have a "crating" dinner to celebrate the completion of another robot.

After our last competition, we always have an end of the season debriefing dinner at old country buffet.

Every summer we have a team picnic to bid farewell to outgoing seniors and to welcome incoming freshmen.

[MagiChau]

BOB rags is the tradition I most clearly remember. Spending days during Competition Season just pressed rags then plopping them onto fellow team-members' backs in the stands. Good fun until people start throwing them. Then it gets messy.