… your excited hawaii is broadcasted in prime time for the east coast.
… you watch matches from your cell phone at a party like event
You die a little inside when you shed your 2 lbs. of buttons from regionals.
You feel incomplete when you aren’t wearing your Regional Operator Badge.
Yes! i know that feeling…
and how you totally freak out the day after the regional when you can’t find your regional operator badge…
…You just know you’re non-robotic friends won’t understand.
…You consider wearing everything (face-paint, tube skirts, and all) you wore at competitions to school.
…You wonder how you can get out of school to watch atlanta.
Mine did too.
“Katie why didn’t you do your homework?”
“I was at a Regional…”
“It was due the day after you left…”
“I was so excited I forgot?”
“Ok, fine. But I really shouldn’t be accepting this.”
…When your teacher doesn’t give you homwork because he knows you missed that lesson because you were at a regional.
…When you don’t have to make up swim days in gym because they know you were at a robotics competition
…When your techer tells you he won’t call on you in class today because he knows you got really sick that weekend at the regional you attended last weekend.
…When you get an award at school, and when they film you recieving the award, they can barely hear you because you lost your voice screaming “Hippo, Hippo, Chomp, Chomp, Chomp!”
Whenever you give directions to a motorist, you insist on using the phrase, “Drive straight, turn left.”
The day after regionals end, you begin designing possible uniforms for next year.
…you feel less likely to have a heart attack after you shed your 10.5 lbs. button-mail shirt. Oh boy, so many Atlas jokes when that happened.
…when the button you got from Team 2576 will become a personal heirloom. !VIVA LA CORAZON DE CHILENO!
Also, I still need more buttons. there’s still room on the back, sides, and sleeves.
when you still have your alliance captain piny 3 months after the regional 
-You do a double-take when you see your robot’s name to make sure that they’re not talking about your bot xD
-You are going to wear everything that you wore to GLR to school–buttons and safety glasses not withstanding.
-Nobody’s going to give you weird looks at school tomorrow, because they’ve seen you dress like that after the last regional
… You could swear they’re screaming “____ robotics” at a basketball game
… You think “prom” is some weird abbreviation for “program”
You can’t open your Mountain Dew can due to equipment malfunction, but have pliers in arms reach to get it open (while in your bedroom).
One of our team members covered herself in buttons. Pants, shirt, shoes… She even had me braid her hair so that she could put 10 more buttons in her hair on Saturday. I believe she wore approximately 20 lbs of buttons that day. They became much like scales. After a while, clanking buttons became white noise.
she was tin girl, since she was covered in buttons,
when you jump up and down when you see the robot weighing 119.4 lbs after changing your entire winch design between two matches and not knowing what it will weigh
…when you have 2 tests that you haven’t studied for during the day and yet, during your free period, you have 3 different newspaper articles about your team, a window of CD, usfirst.org, and TBA open on your computer
You try to figure out some way to incorporate your robot into a wedding. (ring barer:p )
You scream so much that your throat bleeds the first day of competition:ahh: (yes this actually happened)
you see different team numbers that you know all over the place, on tv, workbooks, school, etc
team numbers include
364
34
442
555
and you consider putting your Regional Operator’s badge on your clothes for prom.
Speaking of robot weight…
The weight of your robot is equal to your team number, and it has been for the past 3 years (it weighed 118.9!), so when you get the robot re-weighed at GLR and it only weighs 118.2, your mentor says "Ok, we’ve gotta find something that is functional/legal that weighs seven tenths of a pound!
-He promptly starts looking through your pit for something that actually does weigh .7lbs