This is my first year moving from MAR to Israel, and among the many differences one thing I noticed is that almost all Israeli drive teams have custom pre-match introduction poses. In MAR, a few teams had something custom, but it seemed like most teams just banged on the glass or stood there awkwardly. In Israel, almost every team has a custom pose, and all of the MCs know each team’s pose and mirror it. For an example, here’s 1690’s custom pose on Einstein last year.
So I have two questions. Are custom poses this common in other regions or is this something special here? What are some of the coolest/craziest custom poses you’ve seen?
I’ve never seen anything like 1690’s in person but I have seen a lot of banging on the Plexiglas at GKC Regional over the years. Other things would include pointing at the MC or posing in the same fashion as the other two/three they’re with. On the Seven Lake’s Regional livestream I saw a kid who would always furiously dab on both arms for probably 10-15 seconds.
This year was definitely a few trials before getting to the one we are bringing with us to whatever field we’re put on in St. Louis next week. We stand in order of how we position ourselves during a match (driver to my left, manipulator on my right) shoulder to shoulder. When they announce the T sound in “ten” of eighteen-ten we put the same foot out and cross our arms at the same time so we’re at an angle.
Before we got there it was uncoordinated or we couldn’t decide on what to do. High fives were awkward and always missed, then before deciding when exactly to step out someone would miss the cue. Our first few matches we basically just stared the MC down on accident.
3418’s thing is to bang on the plastic REALLY hard, I know a lot of other teams do it, but the fact that other teams at Seven-Rivers and Wisconsin pointed it out that banging on the plastic is something we do, is big. We have knocked a team standard off before by doing so.
its petty spread out in PNW. Some teams (like 2557, 1983, and 2930) have some pretty cool things they do, but not everyone does it. More personal preference than anything.
95 has been doing a little pokey dance since 2013 when I was drive coach for a season. We wanted to do something besides clap or hit the glass, so I forced the students to mimic the only dance move I have. Eyes were rolled, but they humored me and went along with it.
Fast forward to today and I’m not drive coach and none of the students from that time period are still on the team, but our drive team still does the exact same little jig and most of the MC’s dance along.
Over last two years I have gotten our team to have some fun for driver introductions each match .If we lose the previous match we simply clap it up when being introduced .If we win our previous math our driver picks something on the spot simple salute,a dance or little jig,dab…etc. We have some fun with it and usually never repeat moves for introduction during one event
Lots of teams I’ve met have hand signs but not necessarily poses. Some examples: 1410 (The Kraken) wiggle their arms around like squids. 3847 (Spectrum) lift their arms to make triangles over their heads.
We on 159 don’t have a hand signal but we get introduced as 1-5-9 and then we yell GO-AL-PINE!
Here on Laker Robotics we have a few different poses! It started last year as a joke and it stuck! Sometimes we’ll duck below the alliance station wall and then creep up and look through binoculars, other times we’ll row a boat (to actually match our team’s sailor theme), and in other instances, you’ll be able to see us lifting a weight that doesn’t exist (like playing air guitar, but with a weight)!
Overall in Michigan, there’s a wide variety of poses and also a lot of teams who pound the glass.
Apart of being on 5460’s drive team is that you have to learn the pose, we do a sort of lighting strike with our hands, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cBYlXNQXeY , as seen in the beginning of this video.
Yeah I gotta say FIM’s got some pretty cool drive team intros. The famous Killer Bee quintuple hop complete with the 33 hand-sign comes to mind. Frog Force’s ends up being quite similar: the drive team and everyone in the stands froggy hop at the same time, and you can see the 503 gang sign often ().
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