Re: 2013 ACTUAL game hint!!!
 

I love that quote.

Re: 2013 ACTUAL game hint!!!
 

I'm no mathematician, but....

The odds of that cipher ending up in that 48 letter poem, and then "accidentally" like "koinkydink" also being an anagram using all 48 of those letters without a spare letter given that there are 29 non-vowels like 3 G's among others....Astronomical I'd think (though I'll bet someone will be along very soon who actually could list exactly what the odds would be).....Reversed from the anagram to the poem easily done, as it does not have to make quite as much sense. The anagram certainly did.

It is certainly easier to reverse engineer than to invent...But it isn't anywhere near as much fun!

Re: 2013 ACTUAL game hint!!!
 

The fun part about the "3" guess is that the number is so ubiquitous it's almost guaranteed to come up at least once in the game, giving people a sense of warm-fuzzy validation on their predictive abilities. :)

Re: 2013 ACTUAL game hint!!!
 

HI, TO SEE LOGIN, MANAGERS RISKD SEEING GREAT NERDS DID WISH

Takes a bit of time (which I was running out of quickly), and I was short just one lousy "E", but as to the possibilities, more than I originally thought given the time going into the process...The poem gave many more possible words than I figured on to begin with.

Yes, it is very STRANGE!

What if there actually is 3 game hints? It would make sense that the Rick Astley screen grab was hint #2. But was there something before or after that?

Re: 2013 ACTUAL game hint!!!
 

Now that I think about it, there was that "typo" in the URL of the second game hint and KOP:

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...tual-game-hint

*kit-of-ARTS*

Web developers often make the mistake of making a typo in the URL and don't care to check them or fix them because its pretty insignificant. But with all the connections to some type of art that we've seen like Rick Astley, Seal, and maybe even the robot movie that Jack Black (who covered Kiss From a Rose) is starring in this year (the movie is based on a book by Daniel Wilson, a "roboticist"), maybe it's actually not a typo, and that's Hint #2.

Re: 2013 ACTUAL game hint!!!
 

I think it's wrong to direct the number "3" to tetras, despite everyone's desire to find patterns in game design progressions. The prefix tetra- actually means 4, anyway.

Re: 2013 ACTUAL game hint!!!
 

I believe people are referencing Triple Play, which had tetras as game pieces.

Re: 2013 ACTUAL game hint!!!
 

A ROSE, KISSED SINGER GREAT = Seal

A DINNER, MISSED = Fast

HOLDING WEIGHT = Rope

This image,

is of three push pins, red, yellow and blue, plus a single red tack.

It's a tack. Attack.

The song lyric is "lift you up" and "let you down".

I do a lot of kayak fishing at the Hampton Roads bridge tunnel. I see Navy SEALS training quite often. When they attack, the technique they use is fast roping.

This year's game will have three teams, yellow, blue and red. It will involve ascending or descending a rope in a controlled manner. The red team will either be attacking the yellow and blue teams, or will be attacked by them.

Has there ever been a game where the game element is rope?

How likely is it that a three CIM motor gearbox is necessary to act as a winch to either lift or lower the weight of a FIRST robot in a reasonable amount of time?

Re: 2013 ACTUAL game hint!!!
 

Re: ToddF's idea: I found this cool "Seal Fast Rope" video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQk2Uz6jnw4

I wonder if we'll have to climb some type of structure then deploy mini-bots by "fast rope"? Maybe they'll be a little more capable than in 2011 because they'll be controlled by Rasberry Pi computers?

Re: 2013 ACTUAL game hint!!!
 

There is a different kind of kiss of a Rose that I don't think has been mentioned yet. A backdrop significant to this year's game?!

Just throwing it out there.

Re: 2013 ACTUAL game hint!!!
 

Reminds me of our rookie year...

Re: 2013 ACTUAL game hint!!!
 

I don't think the lower left pin (in the Rick Astley photo) is a tack, nor is it photoshopped. It's a push pin, just like the upper left, but aimed straight at the camera so we don't see any of the side. The vague shadow below is because the light source is above.

So, I think that's a red herring. Let's focus on the rest of the hint(s).

I still haven't seen a really satisfactory explanation of "A dinner, missed".

Re: 2013 ACTUAL game hint!!!
 

I know most of you will think im crazy, but id love a chance to drive on regolith!as i was not part of lunacy!

Re: 2013 ACTUAL game hint!!!
 

no, you don't want that. seriously.

I picked a random video from 2009 from 254's fantastic collection of robot videos on their youTube channel. This is a semi-final elims match.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rpgf9jdVNM

Do you have any idea what's happening in that match?

Pinning. Lots of it. Totally legal in 2009. And the robots would clump together trying to pin each other, and the human players would score a lot more than the robots. And that was about it.