Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

two ideas:

1) making it onto the ramp during auto secures your alliance points, and then the robot is free to move about and score during the rest of the match, without having to worry about climbing back on at the end

2) the autonomous is at the end, and making it onto the ramp by the end of the match secures MAJOR points

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

No!

It said a ramp (the thing you quoted).

This is just more evidence towards a central hill.

By the way...

I just got back from a TSO concert (go see them) with some FIRST friends. Since the show was at the Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester--home of the BAE Regional--we got to talking about FIRST. I mentioned the theory about the elimination of the alliances, but both my friends maintained that notable FIRST sponsors (including 3M and Johnson & Johnson) had threatened to pull funding if FIRST did that.

Can anyone confirm/deny this?

--Petey

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

sorry i can't, but that's an interesting concept...i didn't realize how important alliances were to the sponsors. Probably has to do something about the real world...

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

not to be mean, but after 31 pages.. do we have any solid ideas? even simple ones?

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

5'=0 robots tangling with pasta.

If I were going to place money on anything "discovered" from this thread, that's the only thing I would even consider.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

i still stand by my recap from a *few* pages ago.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

I think we have discovered yet again that they knew what they were doing when the came up with the hint.
apart from that, im thinking an uneven field is likley.
and there will be something green on the field somewhere.

edit- im with nuttyman on that recap

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

ok... so i dont know if these have already been said or not.. because i dont really fell like reading all these.

My idea:
it will be 2vs2 with another robot controlled by a staff member or something... like in battle bots...

Tangled with pasta = maybe there will be some rope or netting involved? i know thats dangerous, so i kinda doubt it, but it jumps out at me.

Scoring object obsessed witha shovels show = maybe a small bag of sand? although the first thing i thought of was a pool noodle. but everyone thought of that.

it probably wont be a flat field... im asuming a platform or 2.

see the green... maybe there is something on the platform that you have to use the CMU cam in autonomous to get on to the top of the platform to reach?

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

We mentioned before a pentagonal ramp. Well I just woke up in the middle of the night and thought of this... if there is a pentagon shaped ramp, the field would not be entirely symetric. that may or may not matter but the fields usually had strong symetry to them. both on the red or blue side, and on the left and right. i was also considering the size of a robust pentagon ramp and what kind of effect it may have on cramping the field. it could be done, but im not sure. After all the 2003 ramp took up a large portion of the feild then and that was only 2 sides! think of how large a 5 sided ramp would be? yes the field is larger, but is it THAT much larger? i dunno... anyone elses thoughts?

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

That's a good point, Gundamx. The pentagon ramp does seem pretty unlikely. But I am still convinced that the portion of the clue referring to five 'bots does not mean only five 'bots. I think the game will remain 3vs3, especially considering how much FIRST is growing, they won't go back to 2vs2 because 3vs3 allows regionals and the championship to run much faster since 6 robots get through a match at one time instead of 4. I think what the "five 'bots tangling with pasta" refers to is that one robot has some sort of advantage, is doing something, or is somewhere that the other five bots are trying to take away, do instead, or get to. At first I thought a ramp, but it could really be anything, as long as only one bot can do it at one time. I don't think any of the 2vs3, 2.5vs2.5 or 2vs2vs1 ideas are very likely to occur. But, as always, just an opinion.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Just a few thoughts -
five 'bots tangling with pasta
a game piece obsessed with a shovel's show
and seeing Montana's green heights

FIRST realizes that throughput is important and in order to get each team as many matches as possible, last year they introduced 6 bots as a way of achieving it. Expect 6 bots to be playing each match. I expect there will be 3 teams of 2, instead of 2 teams of 3.
5 bots tangling mean that there is most likely 6 bots playing, but only room
for 5 bots to score or do some task.
This is simply good game design - always leave one less forcing an unbalanced situation for decision making. Do we do this first and hope there will still be room for us over there doing that later???

"Tangling" refers to fighting over or with
"Pasta" refers to either the game objects or a game piece - game objects could refer to things that the bots could get entangled with while trying to move around or into certain playing field areas. I beileve they will be an impediment located in front of the scoring area - PVC pipes or hoses hanging down acting as an impediment for climbing or hanging or placing or throwing objects??

The game pieces are obsessed with being placed in a hole (this is
the shovel's show). Normally a hole would be difficult to create - if it were in the floor, but this year the holes (scoring area) is raised above the floor on a plateau.

Montana's green heights has dual meaning.
Montana is refering to a football analogy (end zone) as well as a derivation
of the word (Mountain)
The Mountain reference is describing one end of the field where a 4 foot
high ramp is found, with a 3 foot flat plateau on top. The green refers to
a border around 3 holes into which the footballs must be placed - the reason for the border is to allow robots to find the holes while in autonomous.

Joe Montana (the quarterback) - his goal was to cross the endzone to score
points - and he was extremely good at doing this in the final seconds of the
game.
Bots will be awarded scoring points if they cross the end zone at the end of
the game. The end zone is on one end of the field - opposite
from the mountain (ramp end)

So - in summary here is what I see -
6 robots trying to climb up to the top of a 4 ft ramp at one end of the
field, to a small plateau with room only for 5 bots - attempting to place
footballs into designed holes to score points.
I see autonomous at the end of the game - possibly this is the way to score bonus points at the end of the game, by crossing the endzone.
I see the camera being used to locate the scoring holes.

I see footballs being the game piece that the humans interact with and the impediment (hanging wall of pvc pipes or hoses) as way to discourage the humans from trying to throw the footballs into the holes directly (unless the impediment is moved out of the way)

Just some fun ideas to ponder - remember this though
The hint never reveals everything - but it does provide us all with entertainment for a couple weeks before we all see how far off our guesses were and if we aren't close - alot of good ideas for future is harvested.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

hmmm........

spaghetti code?

High Wire Gallery Shovel Show?

Buffaloberry (Shepherdia argentea)?
8-12 feet, needs full sun= cams need good lighting

well it took a lot of reserch and i didn't feel like typing all the information i found, but you might want to google the things that I've been pondering that might have to do with the game....


by the way i haven't looked over all the posts but i'm sure some of these were mentioned

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Yes we have.



I know it's a lot of threads to read through people, but please, be constructive, read through it, and either add your own new ideas or clarify ideas already posted. If you repost things already posted by other people, all you're doing is adding posts and making the thread larger so more people will use the page count to excuse their doubleposting.

Man, am I looking forward to kickoff.

--Petey

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

suprisingly, i think only the High Wire Gallery was mention earlier...the rest are entirely new connections. good work!

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

i stand by my idea if a hill (possibly 10 feet high) with 3 teams of 2 and the robots will be useing foot balls