We all know that when you get a group of high school students together, take them out of their natural environment, either by bus or train or plane, mischief happens.
I have been witness (but never a part of) such cavorting and capering and planning and plotting. There must be a few stories out there about things that have happened while traveling to and from competitions.
Question of the Week 08-10-03: What unusual things have happened to you or your team while traveling to FIRST events?
This should make for a bit of light summer reading, and it is vacation season, after all, so traveling is probably something on a lot of peoples’ minds.
Well traveling by plane to nats in 2002 I belive, the flight attendants were really cool, and we played this game where they took two rolls of toilet paper and started each one at the front of the plane and then they said GO and we had to pass it over our heads to the person behind us until it got to the back, there is still a debate to weather the left side or the right side of the plane finished first.
When we were in the Atlanta, or San Jose Airport (cant remember which) One person was being “randomly” searched and shouted out “Hey, look Im a terrorist!” That wasnt too smart. Luckily they didnt get stopped and arrested or something… On our way to Sacramento, we had a large tarp covering our cart and tools and stuff in the back of a pickup. The thing wouldnt stay put no matter what, and we stopped 2 or 3 times to fix it. The advisor in the car behind us was calling us every two minutes telling us how it was about to fly off, and eventually it almost flew off into traffic… needless to say, that would have been very bad. we never really had anything exciting, or pranks, or anything of that sort happen while traveling.
Hmm, don’t realy know how funny, and hopefully someone whom was there can elaborate (I travel w/ family to Nats, not the team). Anyways - In 2000 on the journey there and back was iffy due to Northeast weather… on the return flight, a screw up in Orlando, made a mistake in Charlotte, and therefore could not return home to Philadelphia. The result - the airline put the entire team up in a NICE hotel with only 2 people to room, plus had to buy people things, due to the luggage being sent on home already.
Of course, I’ll never forget my most memorable stop in a truck stop in Meridian, Mississippi on my way to the Championship this year - having someone pound on my RV door at 3AM, yelling to take cover from a Tornado headed directly for us.:eek:
I guess that there are a few unusual things that happen on our team, but the main one is our famous massage lines that we do in the middle of the hotel hallways. Other favorites are putting all tv’s in one room for halo tournaments and Josh’s always strange hairstyles.
On the way to UTC New Englands in 2001 we had our robotics owl mascot in the back of the van. We turned it on and had it looking at the cars behind us. I think we scared some of them.
If any UTC 2001 team remember that robotic owl that was on this big black cart in the pits that were under the tent, that was us.
On the way to this years championship, 311 was on the plane with us and just happened to sit down in front of our programmer… after a few minutes they realised we were another team and so the very common “were going to do better than you this year” conversation broke out, and ended with 311’s advisor stealing our programmers stuffed animal…
I remember walking around General Mitchell Int’l Airport in Milwaukee the day we left with our robot’s controls as my carry on. I got some very strange looks and lots of questions at security, but they let it through and I wasn’t even searched. Right after I walked through, our human player was behind me, and he got the whole shoes off search, and I walked on down to the gate with my joysticks :p.
Also another funny one is that on the way back, we carried on the 2 “FIRST Robotics Championship” signs that we have permanently borrowed from the Reliant Arena Complex, well on Sunday afternoon before we left we took off the “hip” on the signs so they said “FIRST Robotics Champions” and we carried them around the Houston airport on onto our flight. Well the flight crew saw them and as we started out final descent into Milwaukee the captain came on and said “I hear we have some champions aboard…” and we got this round of applause from the jet, it was classic.
*Originally posted by Ricky Q. *
**Also another funny one is that on the way back, we carried on the 2 “FIRST Robotics Championship” signs that we have permanently borrowed from the Reliant Arena Complex, well on Sunday afternoon before we left we took off the “hip” on the signs so they said “FIRST Robotics Champions” and we carried them around the Houston airport on onto our flight. Well the flight crew saw them and as we started out final descent into Milwaukee the captain came on and said “I hear we have some champions aboard…” and we got this round of applause from the jet, it was classic. **
Although the story is quite funny, I have a couple problems with it. At both regionals I attended they stated that taking the signs was stealing and teams were not to remove them. I think you should make sure that your “permanent borrowing” is allowed and if not return the signs or at least offer to. Or perhaps I am wrong and it is different for he Championship event.
Also, while that was a funny joke to remove the “hip” from the sign and calling yourself champions, I believe that taking fame and/or credit for something you didn’t do is not a good way to make friends.
Don’t worry we set the crew straight and they made an announcement with the correct info, and we didn’t claim that we won the whole thing anywhere else, we were just messing around.
*Originally posted by sanddrag *
**Although the story is quite funny, I have a couple problems with it. At both regionals I attended they stated that taking the signs was stealing and teams were not to remove them. I think you should make sure that your “permanent borrowing” is allowed and if not return the signs or at least offer to. Or perhaps I am wrong and it is different for he Championship event.
Also, while that was a funny joke to remove the “hip” from the sign and calling yourself champions, I believe that taking fame and/or credit for something you didn’t do is not a good way to make friends. **
Jeez… lighten up, it was all in good fun. Im sure FIRST is really pissed that every team took their own sign home with them and snagged any others sitting around. They probably have a whole squad of crack detectives searching the nation for every last missing sign as we speak. Hides all his signs under his bed
Going to the last Championships in Disney (and our first, and it would appear only), we had some good times.
JFK Airport, about 6:00 in the morning. We all check in. Airport worker says someone is bound to get the random search ticket. Well, my friend, Dan (SuperDanMan here, I think) gets that ticket, and just looks at the check in guy, and goes “Heh, I win!”. He then disappeared for about an hour, and what happened in that time is still open to debate…
About 30 minutes later, we made it to our gate, and no one was there. We had nothing to do, but we had a couple (by couple, I mean a lot) of hacky sacks, and plenty of kids to play. Circle of about 20 kids, in the middle of the Delta terminal at JFK. Needless to say, we got plenty of stares, almost killed (ok, maybe just maimed :p) a few people, but it was worth it :D.
This year, going down to Annapolis, me and Dan (same one as before) created an entire, working, Dashboard program on the coach bus. Two laptops, a power inverter, and a one year old RC/OI/Battery can get you a very long way ;). Then there was also that small worms tourny before we started programming. That was fun…
That’s about all I can say about travel so far. Next year I’m sure there will be more fun, but for now, no more.
Recently when some members of my team attended the Chairmans Award Banquet in Manchester, we visited a small arcade/ice cream shop down the street from the hotel…
We won entirely to many tickets playing skeeball and had to get rid of them by buying stuff so i bought a small plastic samuri sword.
Well we only brought carryons and nobody checked anything, and it wouldn’t fit into my backpack so my friend put it in his bag…he got flagged and searched by the security people and they kinda yelled at him for trying to bring a ‘look alike’ through.
That and when we tried to get a custom circuit board through security in indianapolis heading to houston, and EVERYTHING that kid had got searched and he got searched pretty thouroghly too.
Excitement while traveling with the team? Well I think my best memory is going back-wards down an offramp in downtown Chicago. The story goes like this. Our team leader had decided we would do a little detour through Chi-town and see all the big buildings and whatnot. Well, he picked the wrong exit to get off on to say the least. We got about 50 yards off the highway before we came to a complete halt on the off-ramp, with traffic backed well beyond on the surface street. After sitting there for about 20-25 min some of the “locals” all of sudden started going down the off-ramp and getting onto the highway. Well pretty soon this off-ramp had turned into an on-ramp with this mass flux of people going in the reverse direction. Than, our turn came. And as any good lemming does, we followed the crowd . So after an impromptu U-turn on the off ramp we made are back down and back onto the highway to try our luck a little further up the road.
i threw my plane ticket out… that was kinda funny, and i am a college mentor and when we travel to nationals, someone else has to hold my ticket for me
*Originally posted by “Big Mike” *
**i threw my plane ticket out… that was kinda funny, and i am a college mentor and when we travel to nationals, someone else has to hold my ticket for me **
No- it wasnt FUNNY
Now we have a guard watch him at the airport…
(BTW- this pic was taken minutes before he threw that ticket in the garbage!!)
818 was a nightmare. I didn’t do anything bad personally, but I know most of what went on. The GLR was relatively calm, mainly because we bussed the team to and from the arena daily. And Nationals was relatively calm, except for the management yelling at a room full of guys with a GameCube and Super Smash Brothers - it got a wee bit competitive, which led to some very loud trash talking. West Michigan, though, was a nightmare…
By the end of the trip, it seemed like our team had done as much as possible to trash the hotel. I can’t recall everything that was done, but here’s what I can remember…
-Ice completely coating the carpet on our team’s floor
-Two buckets of ice ended up in the ceiling…no one would have known, but the ice melted and left a very visible ring on the tiles…
-Pizza boxes thrown out of windows
-Almost everything that could have been frozen was. Towels, washcloths, random personal items…if it could be coated in water and stuffed in a freezer, it was. This led to…
-Bowling in the hallway with frozen rolls of toilet paper. This one got a few people in trouble.
-The one event that was most memorable to me: two of my friends got a hold of a CD and put it in the microwave. Sparks flew, and they ended up with their microwave soaking in their bathtub…
Looking back at some of the things other 818 members pulled in Grand Rapids, I’m surprised that no one got in major trouble. I’m a bit disgusted with all that was done. I’m glad that I didn’t participate in anything like that. I just hope things run a bit smoother next year…
[edit]I hate typos. Fixed a stupidly obvious one.[/edit]
Trying to find our hotel this year coming from the Airport in Houston was interesting. I remember the street signs there being about 5 inches wide and then 2 seconds later the street appears. It was… suspenseful… to say the least.
When traveling, the Prank Monkeys don’t have much style. We ask and beg teachers, parents, mentors, and administrators until we find someone who has a van and some free time. When we went to the Indiana FIRST Teams Workshop in Kokomo (about an hour away), one of our drivers was Dr. Wang - a semi-narcaleptic (unofficially) man who has wrecked a car by falling asleep at the wheel (no one was badly injured, I’m told). The most unforgetable memory of that trip is when I met up with him and his group and he said, in a joking voice - “we still alive” (he’s chinese). He knew I was worried and releived to see everyone still walking, but the joke was more terrifying than funny, especially considering the pale look on the passengers faces.
In 2002, 6 Academites (not yet Monkeys) took a trip to Grand Rapids to watch the regional and get kids interested. Dr. Wang was again our driver. It was scary that time as well, but the funny part of the trip is that he slept in the stands a lot (even through the finals!). So when we split up from him for a while, he fell asleep and didn’t meet up with us. And as our group leader, I had the pleasant duty of going to pit administration and (with a straight face) asking them to page Dr. Wang. Those who were listening got a kick out of it
. So after an impromptu U-turn on the off ramp we made are back down and back onto the highway to try our luck a little further up the road.
**