3013 - Game hint?
 

Typo or game hint...

Re: 3013 - Game hint?
 

Obvious game hint.

With global warming (truth aside), the ice caps are melting. by 3013, the entire earth will be covered in water.


Water game.

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Interesting that the link on the FIRST Choice blurb is for the KOP...

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Yeah, I've been looking for a real link to window shopping all morning. It appears not to exist.

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1:47 and the window is still closed. :'(

- Sunny G.

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Window shopping is now open. Point values appear more sane at first glance.

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Team 3013 = Zombots = Zombie Apocalypse game

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Also the 3-port extension cable is 0 FIRST Credits

Free Energy!

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I've been noticing lots of 3s everywhere ...

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Since this stuff has all been linked to blogs involving FIRST Choice(ie. 1/3rd of the whole kit), I think the answer to our first hint is obvious.


Each team is getting 3 kits of parts this year.

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Or 3 parts of a kit? :D

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Usually default timestamps are automatic on blog setups like this, so this looks pretty deliberate.

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Obviously this is a game hint for the year 3013. The probably already decided the game for that year. :D

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From FRC Blog:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...45&postcount=1
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...49&postcount=3
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...59&postcount=8

Dr. Who reference, coupled with the 3013 date.

Game hint aficionados, get to work.

Next clue will probably be a recording of a pit admin saying that team 9876 needs a flux capacitor.

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Hmmm. Biggest thing I can think of is either an increase in match time. Bigger/More alliances could be as well.

Or what kind of game could they do with time?

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http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...r-viewing-2014

Looks like the 3013 date was changed...

I'm seeing a lot of 3's and time references. Is it possible that they're hinting at a 3 minute game? This is discussed every year, but never has there been this many clues.

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Or a three alliance game; that'd be something.

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Originally, with all the threes I would have agreed with you. But Dr. Who is all about this:
I think it's a much stronger indication of a three minute game, or the game being distinctly three parts, auton, teleop, and end game, unlike until now, when teleop and end game were largely mixed together.

Another thought from the FRC Blogged today: Tom Baker was the 3rd reincarnation of the Doctor.


Half life 3 confirmed.

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Amid all the wild speculation, the only guess that I can come up with (and would probably bet on, if I were a betting man) is that this years game would not be sports-related.

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"*SPOILER ALERT. If you can’t wait, I’ll tell you the end. Tom Baker makes an appearance as the museum curator." FRC Blogged Today Link

Either Frank is a Doctor Who fan, or there is some Hintery going on.

Because I am not the former, was there any reference to Baker in a museum in the 50th?

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Yes. He made a surprise appearance at the end as a museum curator to the present Doctor.

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Can we assume that part is not a hint and just Frank being a Whovian?

Why am I even asking that on CD? We're going to dissect it anyway.

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I'm tending to agree with you, and I'll also go out on a limb and say there will be rules preventing possession of game pieces. 2 Shooting games in a row tells me that they will want to get away from shooting this year.

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Unlikely they'll increase it to a 3 minute game. That equates to an extra hour and 15 minutes of competition at a minimum for most events (~100 matches, 45 second increase per match). That's untenable for many events.

More likely that they put the periods in another order. Maybe autonomous IS the endgame, and teleop comes first :ahh:.

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I remember when this idea was thrown out there in previous years. I would love to see it done, because you would either A) rely on sensors or B) get set up 5-10 seconds.

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That makes Tom the 4th Doctor, and arguably the best time lord. :cool:

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I don't think the 3013 typo means anything, but if all of this three nonsense does mean something, keep in mind that something as vague as 3 could be a hint for any game since 2008:

All - 3 team alliances
2008 - 3 scoring methods (lap, hurdle, herd)
2009 - 3 game pieces (moon rock, empty, super), 3 goals
2010 - 3 scoring methods (goal, elevate, suspend), 3 zones of play
2011 - 3 game pieces (first logo), 3 tiers of scoring
2012 - 3 tiers of scoring, 3 robots on a bridge, 3 game pieces in the robot
2013 - 3 levels to the pyramid, 3 tiers of white frisbee scoring, 3 discs in autonomous mode

History has gotten so repetitive that I bet you could say "there will be three levels of scoring points this year of increasing difficulty" and probably not be wrong.

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Come on, guys, it's obvious! The Doctor Who reference means that the object of this year's game will be to reverse the polarity of a neutron flow!

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And you forgot Triple Play Chris. ;)

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2014 is contains 4 of the first 5 digits: 0,1,2,4 ...but no 3?!?!? With all these threes popping up, a 3 is conspicuously missing from next year.

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Reminds me of the classic senior prank involving pigs

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Haha yes! FIRST has been waiting for years for this opportunity. A game hint in the year! :yikes:

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http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...2&postcount=12

Another 3 "typo"!

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At the end it talks about Tom Baker. After seeing that, I did some research, it may mean nothing to you, and I might be wrong, but somewhere it said it was the 50th anniversary for Dr. Who. With the 2009 Lunacy being an anniversary and 2011 Logomotion both being anniversaries, Dr. Who could be quite a big game hint, or have something to do with it. Tom Baker was the 4th doctor in the late 70's, I'm not sure what all these typos (2013 instead of 2014 and 3013 instead of 2013), but with the reference to Tom Baker, it seems like something has to do with time, whether it just means the match is longer or shorter, or if there's something specific in Tom Bakers' episode of Dr. Who with him being a museum curator. Also, on wiki : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Doctor_Who It talks in the end of the 2nd paragraph about Tom Baker, that they wanted to remind the people that he wasn't human.... and didn't have human characteristics.. Along with that, it also says Under the control of_____. I thought this was an interesting coincidence, probably doesn't mean anything though

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I do remember last year, around this time, that something was posted that seemed like it could be a hint, and was not debunked by FIRST. Seems like this is that "hint"...

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Also good to mention that kickoff is 3 weeks after the KOP is released...

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The Doctor Who episode Journey's End was the 13th episode in the 30th season of Doctor Who, thus, 3013. Obviously, the game pieces are daleks.

Edit: Bonus! Tom Baker's first ever episode of DW was called The Robot

Edit 2: Tom Baker's second story was re released on dvd in the UK this year. Guess what day? February 18, 2013! Tom Baker seems to be a recurring theme

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Some team is going to go back in time and fix something to put things right in the present, but we'll never know this has happened.

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I think CD is hungry for kickoff, this is a lot of posts for a game hint thread except for this time of year.

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please let it be a 30 second autonomous at the end of a three minute game.:D

I would be OK with getting less matches if they were three minutes each.

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So, we've determined that either A) Frank is a massive Doctor Who fan and the person at FIRST who is in charge of the blog is REALLY bad at typing out the correct year or B ) These are game hints. Considering the overload of the typos and Frank's seemingly innocuous drop of the Doctor Who 50th Ending in an official FRC Blog Post, I'm willing to play hardball with option B.

The constant re-occurrence of 3 suggests numbers of something (Also, Nikola Tesla reportedly felt he could not have ANYTHING indivisible by 3; his room number, number of napkins, number of towels, etc), and the Doctor Who reference suggests time is important (but let's be honest - time is a resource that FIRST Teams never seem to have enough of).

Auto at the end of the match? Plausible, and a very interesting wrinkle.

We still have no clue on the game piece, but history tells us this will probably not be a common sport object - If they want to avoid a game with shooting, it's easy to get away from a sport object and choose something like inner-tubes. It is still plausible, however, that they use a sport ball like a(n) (American) football and prevent possession of the game piece, and require you to herd it or kick it short distances (re: Breakaway).

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Dear God, no. As someone who is not a fan of Doctor Who, I can't help but pray the game isn't related...

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I have a feeling that it's not specifically related to Dr. Who, like last year, the game hint was a picture of Rick Astley, but the game didn't have anything with him specifically. I have a feeling that it has something within Doctor Who that refers to the game

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That could fit with the hints. Journey's End is the end, and Tom Baker returning is going back to the beginning, resulting in auto at the end of the match

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Even better than that...(are you ready for this? I don't think you're ready for this):

There aren't discreet matches. Your points are all cumulative for the entire event, you just pick up where you left off in the last match, but with different partners. As an added bonus, the autonomous score acts as a bonus multiplier to your teleop score, and you can mix and match auto and teleop periods to get the best points total. None of this "time is linear" stuff.

For the record, I think this would be awful, and the rules would be a mess. But I'm just throwing crazy time-related ideas out there. I highly doubt FIRST will actually change the match length or order by a significant amount, although they COULD conceivably increase the auto time and decrease teleop length (eg 30 second auto and 1:45 teleop).

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Or just joke?

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Tom Baker's first Dr. Who episode was Robot and his last Logopolis. Logopolis' original air date was Feb 28, 1981 which ties in nicely with Week 1 events this upcoming season. Sounds like we could see a regeneration of Logomotion for 2014...

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I'll be very upset if the GDC can't manage to come up with more than a rotation of sports and tubes. Their last fully "original" game was 2009...

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Each team at each regional gets a fully functional TARDIS for their Pit Area, with no limitations on their use.

The possibilities and implications are nearly endless.

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It's worth noting that just about everything in the 2009 game was really, really bad, so originality isn't everything. At least, that's what everyone I know thinks about it; if anyone has a different opinion, feel free to share it.

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I don't know. I get crucified every time I say this, but I kind of enjoyed the 2009 game. There were many flaws though, but no game is perfect.

It would be funny if the game piece is a sphere this year. I think spheres have dominated FRC games in general (at least in the last few years, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012)

It would be nice to see an odd game piece. Wiffle ball anyone?

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Point A: I agree. I liked it overall.

Point B: Never thought of that one. Good one.

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I think one reason so many veteran teams disliked Lunacy was because it was so different it made them feel like rookies. Maybe that's not a bad thing.

Re: 3013 - Game hint?
 

Lunacy lacked a big finish - a ta-da! moment at the end that people are on the edge of their seats for. The BEST FRC games have this suspenseful end game and I think the GDC has finally realized that since every year since Lunacy has incorporated that component.

Re: 3013 - Game hint?
 

No, because they disliked the unwatchablity of the matches and the difficulty of obtaining game pieces. Among many other things, which I'm sure there's can add in.

I can't seem to find it right now, but Cory had a great post about 2009 that said it essentially benefited veteran teams a lot MORE than rookies to have a different playing environment, etc.

I also wouldn't say 2009 was the last "different" year. I think it's pretty easy to make a case for 2010 and last year being fairly different from what we've ever done in the past.

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I personally disliked Lunacy because it was really difficult to explain to spectators who were not part of an FRC team. It was difficult just to tell which teams were on the same alliance, from the starting placement at alternating positions around the field to the bumpers on the trailers setting the alliance color which was hard to see. And then the idea that your score was determined by the number of orbit balls in your opponent's trailer. The field was very crowded because of the 6 additional trailers. And yes, it was hard to tell who was winning. Also the difficulty in explaining the difference between the point values of the different game pieces, including the empty cell that was no points but allowed you to trade it in for a super cell. It was just overload, too complicated for the casual observer to enjoy.

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Besides how unwatchable most of the matches were, there was very little opportunity to innovate, many human players were better than their team's robots, and a dead/missing alliance partner was a death spell because it directly affected how easy your opponents goals were to access.

SVR finals were some of the worst matches I saw all year. More than half of the time at least 5 of the 6 robots were pinning eachother on one side of the field not moving.

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Hmmm... the Lego kit #3013 is a "Space Jet".

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Sounds like it could be that 2009/2012 combo everyone was waiting for: Space Jam!

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Nah, I'm pretty sure the reasons I didn't like it were that you couldn't keep score, the humans played better than the robots, and that the game pieces were always broken.

The novel drive surface/wheels were a nice idea, I guess, but in practice they essentially just made the game messier and drive designs less interesting (mechanically, that is).

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Aside from the 3013 thing, has anyone noticed the game manual updates on November 26 and 27th?:]

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3013 is an anagram for 3301.

Clearly, this is a pointer to a much more elaborate game hint...

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I'm going to run with this. Supposedly the next round should start on January 4th. Is anybody around here doing something else that day?

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What if kickoff will just give us a first clue? and we have to solve the game AND build a robot to compete in it in just 6 weeks.

Any team that comes with a bagged up robot equipped with pool floaties will obviously have deciphered the puzzle.

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Back to the Doctor Who theories, I saw this on Facebook a day or two ago, just thought I'd highlight how they say "to teach kids about science" and that is also in a way what FIRST does

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One thing I think people have forgotten is on the FIRST blog it said he was a museum curator. What does that mean? we have a lot of theories with dr. who, but what does being a museum curator have to do with it?

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The man he references, Tom Baker, was once the Doctor (4th doctor if my info is correct). He appears to the current Doctor to talk to him in a museum, as the museum's curator.

At this point, we haven't determined if Frank is a Whovian or if this is actually a game hint.

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Ok, that last part I didn't know, I didn't know he visited the recent doctor. Now to figure out what it means in relation to a game...

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Something Old
Something New
Something Borrowed
Something Blue

Oh wait, That was Rory and Amy. oops

Also, look at my signature XD

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So has anyone looked at the kickoff video filming photo posted on the blog? I thought it was an interesting post. I thought it could be a hint but there doesn't appear to be anything suspicious in the photo itself. I wondered if there was possibly something hidden in the file.

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The metadata of the photo says that there is no hint here

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It actually says that?!? The GDC is getting evil here!

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May I divert your attention here

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What if Andrew Lawrence was covertly recruited by FIRST to release a game that "he designed" that was actually the real game all along. The game would be sitting under our noses for a month! :rolleyes:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...hreadid=122616

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You caught me. The jig is up. Looks like we have to fall back on plan B: Obstacle Course On Regolith With MiniBots (and 2010 seeding system).

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As long as there are no stupid bins/crates.:rolleyes:

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I beleive he was the one with the spotlight:

What if he is the puppetmaster?

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What do you mean "What If?" Everyone knows this is true. :P

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I'm secretly Dean Kamen.

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Too bad it's already been spotlighted:

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Ahhhh! Doctor Who episode 3013 with the Doctor Donna!! In this episode all of the doctors friends come
Together to save the world from the Daleks who have aligned (23 I believe-maybe that's where 2013 comes from) planets to use as a transmitter for the destruction of reality. The friends must return all the planets to their places and have to use SIX (like the 2 alliances) to operate the tardis and fly earth home! I see lots of coopertition and moving things. But I could be wrong.
I can't wait for more game hints :D

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aaaaaand nope. Not even a little bit.

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Could you imagine how hilarious it would be if the games were similar! :P

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3013? More like 3310..... :cool:

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3013 / pi = 959. Maybe the Kit of Parts will include a Porsche 959.

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Uh, no :P

I wish!

Do we get a pie too? can it be apple please?