Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

hmm reminds me of "Maize Craze"....i hope we're not driving through a banana plantation...

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

My family, some team members and I have been thinking about this hint for some time and one of the things my mother actually came up with was that maybe since the game piece has to be obsessed with something maybe it is animate like a house-bot type thing that FIRST would build and that is why it is five bots. 2 v 2 v 1 autonomous bot game piece.

Considering the thing about greenhorn the new robot would be a new comer to FIRST since it has never happened before.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Read the thread. This is old news. There were even pictures of a "house bot" or placebo. It has happened multiple times in the past. I highly doubt that we will have one, particularly since the original purpose is no longer valid.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Ughhh.. I hope someone is taking all this in cause I just can't step away from this riddle.

It's like the season, FIRST seems to take over my life.

Oh well, it's better than other things taking over my life.

Anyways....

Even more info for everyone to analyze.

In the game Texas Hold-Em Poker, the following nicknames are pretty interesting.

Holding a 9 & 2 = "Montana Banana" or "Twiggy" or "Golf Bag"
Holding a 9 & 4 = "Joe Montana Banana" or "San Fransisco"
http://www.texasholdem-poker.com/hand_nicknames.php


BTW.. 92's Game = Maize Craze
& then 94's Game = Tower Power

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Ok, if that's a coincidence...i can't even describe how whack that would be

Maybe all the GDC people each come up with a game, and then play Hold 'Em to decide which game we play?

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

I'm sorry to burst your bubbles, but i think the banana may just be a reference to Dave's production company, as seen in the 2005 triple play animation, of coarse it could be both

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

I love this idea of cards, it would makes sense, but no, Banana on the 07 hint, and montana may work but no.. hmmm.. but I still think we haven't hit it. There is something that is so obvious but we haven't figured it out yet.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

I love the people who came up with this hint. It seems that every part can be tied to every other part through at least one interpretation. Absolutely genius.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

I don't know is this has been noted yet. There are so many postings on this thread.

John Pasta is a computer scientist who is known in the physics community in relation with his contributions to chaos theory. His name appears in the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam problem. To celebrate Pasta, many chaotic graphs are also called spaghetti graphs.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Awesome find. If this is the same John Pasta I am thinking of, he was a professor at a college/university who gives out awards in his honor which a possible fellow NASA Engineer that Lavery may know received.

More proof the world is smaller than we would like to think.

Search for NASA + Pasta (or John Pasta) and I'm sure you will be able to find the connection.

I saw it a few days back but lost it.

And I think I'm monopolizing this thread, so I'll back off for a while.


Oh, and I did know about the havabanana/2005 (& 2004's) animation splash screen, but everything is worth a second look when trying to solve problems, or riddles in this case.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

they probably finish designing the game in mid-august and spend the rest of the time comming up with the hint...

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Nonsense!! I don't treat my pet that well!!

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

I like the Ideas about the CMU cam and the fun noodles. However, can't the cam recognize other colors than green? seems like they would make visual targets a different color this year....

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

yes, but green is by far the easiest color for it to see (That's why the chose it last year) Also, FIRST wouldn't choose red or blue for obvious reasons...

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

But FIRST DID choose red and blue last year for the auto-loading stations!

Granted, there was no way the camera could see blue... :rolleyes:

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

yes, but they didn't choose the loading station colors with the intention of having the cameras see it, though some teams may have attempted that...

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

There is an Oracle printing utility called PASTA which is needed for double byte character sets and other special print functions. Does anyone see a potential application to the game?

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

here's something no one picked up on yet.

" 'bots" is a shorter version of the word "robots"

maybe they took my idea seriously.......

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

that would be pretty neat acutally...it'd definitely level the playing field somewhat

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Does this have anything to do with the 'bots clue? :cool:

Found it on an MIT site. Hmmm, five steps in the image too. Are we back to stairs? Shover bots, is that a play on shovel? If not, angry shover bots must tangle.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Well, maybe they changed their mind after they found out it didn't work. :ahh:

In the kickoff video, when they were introducing the vision system, they said that teams could use the camera to go after the vision tetras, the little yellow triangles, and the auto-loading zones. Also, the CMUCam utility did have red and blue calibration buttons, and they did specidy the exact paint they were using on the auto-loaders. When I was down in St. Louis, I helped to calibrate the cameras, and they had me get numbers for the red and blue zones too.

But, like I said, I think (hope!) they have learned at this point that the blue (and possibly red and yellow) doesn't work :D

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

dunno about red, but yellow is pretty finnicky. We could recognize the yellow pads ONLY when we were playing for the Red Alliance. The amount that the color values changed for the different sides affected it that much. Green worked fine all the time (thank goodness)

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Hey guys, not to be rude, but could we stay a bit more on topic?

Not that the CMU cam isn't cool, but there are other threads for discussing it, besides, last years hint thread had 586 replies, we have a ways to go, and more decoding to do in order to fill up the remaining 163 posts!


Thanks

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Shall we resort to guess how many posts there'll be in this thread? I say we hit ~701 posts. Still more than a week to go....

Oh yea, the topic at hand... Sorry...

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

I think that the camera target will be elevated

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

No, but you can have imaginary robots. :pWhich means that entire line could literally be a red herring... It wouldn't suprise me to see Dave do that either.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Ryan has a point i remember Dave telling me somthing at capitol clash, i wont say what, but its rather interesting now that i look at the hint...

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Oh please do say! Its not like he told you something in confidence... :P

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

I don't know if this is any hint to the game, but when i took the RC apart, i noticed some room for expansion. On the PCB, there is space for 3 more LEDs on the RC. I have not yet taken apart an OI. There is also a space for a 13 pin header on the PCB. I need to investigate where the traces are connected.

Also, as mentioned before the team color LEDs have the capability to be green. Right now this is reserved for an error status, but all it would take is a firmware update to make this usable as a team color. By turning multiple colors on at one time or varying their brightness through pwm it might be possible to acheive a full spectrum of team colors.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

For ease of refereeing and spectating, they'd probably stick with just individual LED colors (no mix-and-match, and no brightness variation). However, adding in more colors isn't that big of a deal. If they can flash green, who says they couldn't add yellow or something else

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Has anyone talked about the significance of the order of the clue parts? I think it's interesting that they listed the possible autonomous mode "seeing Montana's green heights" last. Could it be possible that the autonomous mode is at the end of the rounds this year? That would make for some interesting strategy. The robot would either have to autonomously determine where it was and adjust, or the driver would have to make sure the robot was at a know location in a known orientation at the end of the driver period. Now there's a scary thought for the programmers!

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

You know, if they wanted to they could replace the team light modules with a module containing a tri-color LED or LEDs. That would be capable of 16 million colors!

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

The word 'bots in the first line troubles me. The fact that it was shortened from robots either means that the number of syllables has some significance, or that the missing letters "ro" have some significance.

In the second line, if we assume the "shovel's show" is what the shovel on the Montana state flag points to, we find the letters "ORO", or more precisely the shovel points to "RO".

Now before anyone suggests "ro ro ro your bot", I looked up the acronym RORO and found this:

So, could there be some sort of ferry that we have to use to achieve a goal, or might we have to ferry something (like another robot) to a goal?

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Thoughts on the number of syllables:
So the alternative explanation to my earlier post about the significance of " 'bots " is that the number of syllables are significant. So what could 7-10-8 translate to?
New robot dimensions this year?
70cm x 100cm x 80cm = 28.58in x 39.37in x 31.5in
(last years dimensions 28in x 60in x 38in)
One dimension is pretty close, but the other two are on the small side.

Could they be dimensions of something on the field? Goal heights?

Could they be a breakdown of the times for autonomous and driver modes or some other event that is time dependent?

Possibly a breakdown of scoring? 70 pts for pasta, 100 for the shovel's show, and 80 for Montana's green heights?

My best guess would be goal heights, but it would be neat if the robot dimensions would change. It would be a lot easier to take a 40 inch tall robot to a fundraiser than the standard 5 foot tall one.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Look at one of Dave's recent posts here in this thread.

The 11th track of that album is called "Spaghetti (Twist and Twirl)" (the tangling with pasta in the clue) and the 12th track is called "Home" (perhaps returning to starting position at autonomously at the end of the match.)

I'm definitely betting on auto mode at the end, and spaghetti type objects will definitelty be the "pasta."

Here's the rest of the tracks on that album link

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

What about the alternate phonetic sound of the word Rho?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rho

It has many scientific uses in the fields of physics, electonics, and other areas.

What I got from the "So you design the 2006 game thread", was that a lot of folks wanted something for a big finish at the end of the match.

Last year wasn't that much at the end, just a home zone return, unless you were fighting over the height of a stack, or putting one on a stack yourself in the last second (fun times at BE).

2001= Last second working together for Ramp position
2002=Last second end zone dash with tethers
2003= Last second Fighting for Ramp position
2004=Last second hangs on the bar
2005=Last second dashes to the End zone, but not as exciting as 2002 with the exclusion of tethers.

I think the order of Montana's green heights may mean a big finish with a field structure green and high off the ground.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

What would be really wicked of the game development committee, would be to have a field element that doesn't appear until an autonomous period at the end. Think of the hanging bar in 2003. What if the pipe were hinged. During player control of the robot, the bar would be straight upward, but once the human period is over, the bar hinges downward and connects with the other upright. No robot could "hang" prior to autonomous in this scenario. FIRST could even pause the robots while the field element is moving into place.
Taking off on Elgin's idea, what if the "End Zone" were undefined until the end of the game? At that point a vision surface is revealed for the robots to "Go Home" (defined as "Any part of your robot must be touching within an arc around the vision plate"). The robot would have to locate the vision plate, and then either drive toward it or release a thether toward it to score. It would be like 2002, except that instead of humans aligning and releasing the tethers, it would be the robot doing those tasks. 2002 had some very exciting finishes, as audiences watched the robot tethers move toward the end zones -- some made it, and some were heartbreakingly just short.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

http://www.montanagreenpower.com/

Having to do with Solar, renewable energy, look at the picture, green mountains???? IDK, first thing came to mind just looked at the clue today.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

In response to Elgin thoughts, The state motto of montana where the shovel is pointing is "Oro y plata"- which stands for gold and silver, lemme know if you get anything from this.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

At the BAE Regional one of our LED's malfunctioned and showed solid green.

http://www.joemenassa.com/Images/ROB...es/EPV0614.htm

It was just a bright as the Blue or Red colors that were used to designate color for the matches.

The parts FIRST used last year certainly are capable of including a green team with minimal additional effort.

Rob

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

I was thinking of the clue late last night, and something came to me. A while back there was a hint given by dave
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...60&postcount=7
about "hovercrafts and the english channel". Could it be possible that the hovercraft metioned in this hint could refer to the placebo bots mentioned earlier in this thread?

this going back to placebo could also be a referece to the cryptic clue given by dave "you already have it" (in reference to the clue)

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

yeah, but do you REALLY want to be the ref trying to differentiate between the robot flashing 0,255,255 and 0,250,255?

they could make the robots be pixels!!! the autonomous mode would be to find the other robots by their LED's and position themselves in a predetermined pattern....or not

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

i don't think they would choose differences that subtle. If they went with full color, we would see colors like yellow and orange. The only reason they would ever need to mix colors in the rirst place would be if there were more than 3 aliances.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

(from wikipedia link) 2. The lower-case letter ρ is used as the symbol for the radius in a polar coordinate system in mathematics.

A ROUND field??!?

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Well at first I was daunted by reading the mass of replies this thread has accrued while I was away, but after reading them and thinking about last years clues, I figured I'd respond yet again.


THE NAME OF THE GAME
Last year's game "Triple Play" was what the baseball players in the clue accomplished. What has Joe Montana accomplished? Comebacks. What is all this ramp or platuea train of thought bringing about? King of the Hill. FIRST game names traditionally flow, therefore I wouldn't be surprised if the name of this year's game was "Comeback King" or something like that.

THE AUTONOMOUS TASK
I envision that the end of the game will involve reaching someplace autonomously with a major bonus. If your alliance can accomplish this task (in my mind this is scaling a box with straight edges that is rather tall, say 3 feet) the points accrued switch if you are the losing alliance. If your alliance is getting destroyed 1 to 100, but you get to the top of the box, the score becomes 100 to 1 in your favor. The switching would only occur if the losing alliance had more robots on the top of the platform (or if they want to enforce robot variety, make the platform small enough that only one robot can be on the top, this would also make staying on top it more difficult).

EDIT:
Does it scare anyone else that this thread has been viewed over 19,000 times... in a week! :ahh:

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

while i am in total favor of king of the hill, and some type of ramp, i dont see alot of points being awarded for the most robots ontop of a ramp, after last years no tipping rule, plus thats alot of crashing and bashing robots, just an opinion.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

However, last year's field was completely flat. Therefore, from an initial point of view when the rules were being made, it should be relatively hard to flip a team on flat ground, so if you do flip someone, it was either extenuated circumstances, or a malicious attempt. Unfortunately, FIRST must have forgot about the "9 pound tetras, ten feet overhead" part of the game...

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Admittedly, I haven't made it through all 30 pages of this thread, but it seems to me that we are forgetting what seems to be FIRST's recent unwritten rule: KISS. FIRST is trying to make the games fairly simple so that people who are unfamiliar with the game and FIRST can walk into an event and walk out understanding the game and somewhat understand FIRST. Also, something to keep in mind is that in this past year, FIRST spent a lot of money on the new fields, and I seriously doubt that they will be throwing them out for a round, sandy, snowy or water filled field. Here are my thoughts:

The "five 'bots tangling with pasta" does not mean that there will be only five robots on the field, but instead five robots that are "tangling with pasta", while a sixth robot is not tangling with pasta, and that the game remains 3v3. I think that Gundamx may have hit a sweet spot with his idea of a pentagonal topped structure. Perhaps each of the five sides would consist of ladder like ramps to get to the pentagonal top, which only has space for one robot. So while one robot sits on the top and attempts to maintain its hold there, the other five 'bots tangle with the pasta (ladders, or maybe even rope bridges). Now, following this, it would obviously be advantageous to reach the top of the ramp as early as possible, i.e. Autonomous. If this ramp is the "green heights", then it must be seen. This makes me think that the entire ramp is green, and it is randomly placed around the field at the beginning of the match, much like the vision tetras last year. So, if you are to gain the advantage by reaching the top in autonomous you have to be able to "see" where the ramp is. FIRST is always trying to get teams to use sensors, and yet it never seems to be successful. Perhaps something of this nature could change all that.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

while i am still all for the ramp and king of the hill idea, with 3'x3' robots weighing 130 lbs i am not seeing a movable ramp, plus if u put that much focus into taking the ramp in autonomous mode what happens the rest of the match, the movable autonomous found ramp sounds kinda boring but these r just thoughts

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

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Good point. But if the ramp has FOUR sides and ONE flat top (like a plateau), doesn't that mean that there is room for FIVE robots? This would work better with the symmetry of the field. The top spot would of course be worth the most points. The ramp would take up a lot of room on the field, no matter what it's shape is. Think like these trucated pyramids, except less steep:

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

that makes a lot of sense...i'm assuming that it wouldn't be mobile, b/c that'd be REALLY hard to climb on if it was... and dangerous too.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Actually, that brings up a really good point. Assume that while "five 'bots are tangling with pasta" there is a truncated pyramid or similarly shaped object on wheels like the mobile goals of '04, or the puck of '98? (in that year robots physically got on top of the puck and were awarded points for it). There would be points for the robot atop of the rolling truncated pyramid (isn't that just a fun word to say?) at the end of the match. Probably in order for most bots to climb it they would need help of an alliance partner, but good robots could mount it themselves leaving 2 of their robots to tangle with pasta while they fended for themselves.

And could you imagine getting on said object in Autonomous Mode?!?!?!?

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

[I only had time to read about half of the thread... so don't kill me if I'm repeating here...] :eek:


A few things discovered in 15 minutes worth of research, none of which I've seen here yet:

1) Couldn't help but Google the exact phrase "five 'bots"... and lookey here what it discovered: http://www.fileaholic.com/idgames/pa...d/coderd12.txt

Knowing the geekiness of the GDC (thats "geek" in the good sense)... I'm guessing there might have been a Quake player or two out there... Notice that "You begin in a level with entrances to three(for now) arenas". *3* !!!

2) Now to dictionary.com... "Tangle: To catch and hold in or as if in a net; entrap".... speaks for itself.

3) PASTA is an acronym in queuing theory; it stands for "Poisson Arrivals See Time Averages". A wildshot... but then again, could have something to do with the scoring system.

4) There is a meaning of "show" that I haven't seen mentioned... again thanks to dictionary.com... "Show: Third place at the finish, as in a horserace." I dunno.... there's that "3" again. Also, "obsessed" can mean "influenced or controlled" SO: Translate: "A game piece influenced or controlled with a shovel's third place finish." Yike's -- the value of a gamepiece might be different for the third place finisher?

I won't touch Montana's green heights for now.

Happy New Year!

Aidan

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

I just thought of this, instead of having the ramps/platform in the middle, they may be at the ends of the field like a end zone in football. This just came to me when I was reading about Montana's heights/Joe Montana. I think it would be cool if they placed the ramps and goals at the ends like end zones, and have the robots start in the middle... Just a crazy idea.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

that might've been mentioned before, but never connected like that....if we had a third place, that would imply three alliances...maybe that's how FIRST is combatting the "ganging up" problem that occurred last time there were three teams playing at ta time...

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Similar to 1995's game:
http://www.firstwiki.org/Ramp_n%27_Roll

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

the field will be cheap.. prob as cheap as last year..and as easy to create.. so I wouldn't count on a 10ft hill

also if it's 5 bots... it won't be 2v3 -- that would take way TOO much planning and could be a catastrophe
5v0 is very possible -- alliances could have the opportunity to end a match early again - and if the avg time of a match is 1:40 or so.. it would make up for not having a 6th team on the field

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

What if it was a standard ramp like in 2003 with rope netting instead of wire grate? and then the top of the ramp could only hold five? remember how the ramp only fit so many in '03? its a little flooky, but maybe...

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Another really crazy idea, but what if the truncated pyramids are at the end zones like Norris said. You begin on top of the pyramids and at the end autonomous period, you have to use the CMUcam to find your way back on top of the pyramid

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

The ramp/platform in 2003 could hold 4 robots, the number that played the game that year. It happened many times during Regionals and Championships.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Oh my god, this is a good find. This makes me think that it will be a 2x2 game with a FIRST-controlled defensive bot defending the top (where there will be a goal for the footballs).

Ramps will have to be scaled by robots during the end of the match--which will be autonomous--for extra points...and they must have started *off* the ramp before autonomous began.


--Petey

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

i don't know about an autonomous task at the end of the match, it would make the ref's job hard to make sure the task was not completed (or started) during operator controlled mode
though, it would be an interesting twist

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

How would you introduce a house robot?

This would tick people off more than anything FIRST has ever done in the past. Unless it just sits there, or drives around with flashing lights all over it, far away from the action, there's no way to keep the robot from adversely or positively effecting the rest of the teams. Everyone would complain that xx alliance got more help from the house bot than yy alliance, and zz alliance got completely screwed, etc.

Plus, how on earth are teams supposed to build their own robot, PLUS a second robot, just to have a working field?

This isn't battlebots, where the entire goal is to destroy everything else on the field. There's no way there's a house bot.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

That's true. There's no way there would be any housebots that do specific tasks, like defend, otherwise teams would need to build their own housebot in order to practice before competitions. Most teams only build pieces of the field, so it's doubtful FIRST would make us build another robot too.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

i agree with this quote by edthegeek:

this also reminds me of the vex field that looks as follows. of course there has something different in the middle. but there is an example of the ramped edge idea. hmm, instead of vex using FRC games, maybe it is the other way this year? anyone agree? my mind is spinning.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

It would be an interesting idea, but I highly doubt that FIRST would use the same game in two competitions in the same year. But if it is, I've got about 4 different designs that would work:).

I think that auto mode at the end is feasible. If there were some sort of pause between the operator control and autonomous, it would be possible for the refs to discern where a robot is in respect to the two modes.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

It is a most cryptic clue, but I was wondering if they released the encrypted version of the game manual yet? I remember from kickoffs in the past they always gave out an encryption key at the end for anyone who was curious, have they released the new, encrypted manual yet? I couldn't find it anywhere on FIRST's homepage.

On a side note: for those who enjoy clues, hints, and other things such as these, you guys should check out "cryptic crosswords", they're really cool things and could be helpful. There are some examples of cryptics crosswords here and for those who become exceedingly frustrated, a cryptic crossword solver here (it's a really impressive piece of software...)

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

I emailed them about that. They said that portions of the manual will be posted on the 4th. Game portions will be posted after kick-off.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Anyone looked at the food guide pyramid lately?
http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/Fpyr/pmap.htm
What does the pasta part of the food pyramid look like? :-)

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Good find!

I'm almost convinced about the ramp-shape now...

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

I think there will be five robots against each other. Well i guess that is possible on a pentagon shaped goal or bowl in the middle, full with sticks or something like 'spaghetti'. Well shovel then kinda makes sense; means something to pick up those sticks or pool noodles.
and green or montana?........CMU??...
only 7 more days to go......sooo excited can't wait!!

Imad

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Just to toss one more idea into the mix, look at this map of Montana:
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=47.04...4.194336&hl=en

The "green" on the map in Montana is Glacier National Park.

http://www.theculturedtraveler.com/P...es/Glacier.htm

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

I am new to CD and also tried to search this thread for "Flat green pool noodles". So if I am repeating this discussion....sorry

My daughter takes swim lessons and to make a short story....

They had flat green pool noodles that looked exactly like pasta. I am searching the internet for a picture of them. What do you think? Could they be talking about an obscure flat pool noodle? It would be hard to pick them up but not too difficult to navigate over them...just a thought

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

The Montana's green heights make me think of a cylindrical field
with a flat point on top that holds the goal.


The shovel's show hint is much more confusing. I see many post of
people looking at the shovel instead of it's show. Now a shovel can be
defined as " an excavating machine; especially : an hydraulic
diesel-engine driven power shovel" which is commonly used for mining
purposes. Now you must look at what that shovel's show can be... "an
indication of metal in a mine or of gas or oil in a well". So I draw
the conclusion that we have a game piece obsessed with metal in a mine.
If anyone can get any sense of that please post it.


The 5bots and pasta part could mean any number of things. Maybe
its just me but the way its phrased I don't see any teams or alliances
but a free for all. Pasta makes me think its a long flexible scoring
piece and that all the robots are tangling with them playing a sort of
tug-of-war. So torque and grip power will be important.
Thats all I can make of it. :rolleyes:

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

how's everyone doin'? I haven't been on CD for a while, but I just wanted to throw in my 2cents...

This is my fourth year in FIRST, and I don't remember any game clue that really made great sense, even in hindsight. Take last year's clue:

Could someone tell me or update me on how this clue foreshadowed Triple Play? Thanks.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

As someone mentioned earlier Montana's state flag has the phrase: oro y plata, on it, Gold and Silver which are mined metals.


Maybe we have to get (mine for) the game pieces out of some kind of structure that has holes in it.

Check out the Looking Back: 2005 Game Hint thread.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

The food pyramid refrenced above is deprecated, this is the new one:



Are we going to have steps?

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

I don't even think a pause is necessary. In past years, there's always been an audio clue signalling the end of autonomous...the could just use that for the begining of autonomous.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

First off...lets just start by saying that last year triangles were used and in the year before that circles were used, so the only shape in their logo not used in succession is the square!!! Possibly the square will be used in this one?

five bots tangling with pasta:
the five bots either means a free for all or 2 vs 2 vs 1, the 1 being a bot controlled via one continuous program and not humanly controlled
if we do have a free for all there will somehow have to be teams involved because the spirit of the competition is having positive learning experiences through interaction with other teams
as for the pasta that could be part of the playing field...shrug...i don't know about that

a game piece obsessed with a shovel's show:
since this is written in riddles it is easiest to look at each part individually and then to conceive its connotations....
a game piece - obvious, and strait forward
obsessed - to have excessive preoccupation with something
a shovel's show - we all know what a shovel is, but what does it show??
my guess is that when the act of shoveling is complete what it has to show is a pile or mountain, obviously we cant have snow, so maybe its meaning is in relation to the pasta?
therefore there has to be a game piece on the field that is used to hold or maintain a "shovel's show" or pile of perhaps the "pasta"

and seeing Montana's green heights:
Montana's mountains aren't green, they are white because they are covered in snow
the general agreement seems to be that the green refers to the color used by the cameras in the autonomous mode in 2005
perhaps the height refers to the game piece in the aforementioned line??

my conclusion:
there will either be a 2 vs 2 vs 1 or a free for all where the object will be to amass or pile pasta like pieces on an elevated platform via the means of a shovel or other mechanism...

-DBF
HSMSE
1520

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

Actually the square was used in 2003 (the plastic bins).

My guess on the 2006 game: a 2 vs. 3 match where one robot changes alliances during the middle of the match. Just my $.02.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

I know it would be cool to see a 2 vs. 3 thing, but that would just complicate things and reduce the amount of matches per team at an event if only 5 teams play in each match. With the increasing growth rate of FIRST, I don't think we'll go back to less than 3 teams. As for all of the other complicated game descriptions, going beyond KISS just complicates things greatly and is asking for multiple problems with malfunctioning equipment. As for the food pyramid post, I don't think a tetra shape will be used becuase teams already grasped how to control them, unless they throw some kinda of curve ball at us. Just my 2 cents...

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

We were actually refering to just the pasta portion of the food pyramid. It's got a trapezoidal cross section.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

I began to wonder, and after a bit of searching, as it turns out...
there is a band called The Shovels. So...given the strange hint of the picture
with the computer song timeline, .....it could just be possible that
"...a shovel's show" is a concert. They appear to play what is called alternative country or punk country (?), and are located in Canada, but I havent been able to find out much other info about them.
Then, Montana is on the Canadian border. Something about borders, crossings, heights?

What's it mean?
I haven't a clue.

Re: 2006 Official Game Hint Discussion
 

maybe it refers to one of their songs...? (i've never heard of them, so i wouldn't know)