Post what strange moments or interactions you had with other teams during competitions or other times at that, things that you wouldn’t expect but would only probably find in FIRST.
At the NJ regional we had these huge massive arms last year (2008) that got ripped off when another team clipped us. After that happened we actually did better and we tracked down the team that clipped us and thanked them for destroying our herding mech and showed them what we did with what was left of it (we had a panel that moved up and down) so we stuck teeth to them since they were now useless. I believe it was MORT…
In 2007, before our entire team wore cheeseheads, I wore a cheesehead in Atlanta. I was eating lunch with a group from my team when a few girls from another team came over. One asked if she could have some cheese, and proceeded to try to pick some off. After realizing it is foam and not cheese she turned and ran away pretty quickly. She seemed pretty embarrased, but I found it hillarious.
The strangest moment was last year at VCU when, after two years of being a minion, I went up to the stands for lunch and realized that was the first time I had been out of the pits the whole time.
When our elevator wire kept snapping, our neighbors in Atlanta (Team 1983 Skunkworks) showed us a lightweight rope that supports ~5000lbs of force. It’s the fantastic stuff used in sailboats…I got an up-close view of it this summer out on the Chesapeake…
Had our FTC bots not worked so inadequately at the Va State competitions in December, our FRC team wouldn’t be so diligent about documenting firmware and software updates.
and in 2007 when our robot lost two treads on the left side, and justin got it all the way back accross the field and up a ramp in 27 seconds for the win…
Our 2008 robot’s arm. 'nuff said(for those of you not at Colorado, we ripped the thing to shreds several times. At our last match it looked like the arm had scabs on it.)
I remember at the NJ regional the Canadian Waldo team was there…they stopped by our pits and this kid on our team pulls out his camera and goes “hi!” click and walks away.
I would say at the 2008 VCU regional.
Spending five hours on Friday morning putting together a 25 by 25 Cristopher Walken picture. Only to find that we were missing four pieces and that they wouldn’t allow us to put it up anywhere…Atleast it have ten minutes of fame.
At some regional, I forget which (or the year), a kid came up to the earplug dispenser we have in our pit. The earplugs are white and another bright color (purple, yellow, or green), so the kid turned the handle, one popped out, and he put it in his mouth…
That reminds me of something that happened last year… In Atlanta we were waiting for our match behind the black curtain. I saw some volunteers walking by, looking very focused, so I looked over. Dean Kamen was driving around in a smart car and the volunteers were making sure he didnt hit anybody. That was not one of the things i expected to see.
In 2007 on the trip to Florida regional, I had to use the restroom at the back of the bus. My teammates thought it was funny to put their foot on the door handle so I couldnt get out. The doorlatch broke and I was stuck in the bus restroom!!! Worst off, the light was wired to the lock, so when the door was unlocked, the light was off. After 20 minutes I was able to pick the lock with my student ID. I am a mentor this year and I still haven’t lived that down.
I liked when we got a small tear in our bumper fabric and stuck a bandaid over it. This was not at competition, but we brought the bumper to the CT Regional as a spare to keep in the pits, and we got some comments on it.
One time, we needed a piece of lexan cut and just had a hand saw. We had three people keeping the lexan from wobbling and it still kept shaking. Our safety person was telling us to be careful because it was making him nervous, when a guy came up to us and game us a safety point. He said that we were doing a great job of being safe. I half expected that he was going to get onto us. He even said that he would have given two if we had safety gloves on at the time.
