Varied color light trick...
 

For anyone at Championships, or watching, you saw the trick of being told that the target light would change colors during the different periods.

He said it was a possibility for next year... anyone think it'll happen?

Just curious as to what you all think, because personally I know it shocked me when he said it, but it may be an interesting twist on next year now that we've used the cameras for one or two years...

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Sounds like the rumor season has started. It would put an interesting twist on next year's game. Would be a great challenge to do.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Yeah even with that Cathode display, I think they might be throwing some new colors at us next year.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Yes normaly I don't take part in rumor mongering but i've now seen at least 3 hints towards the 3 different colour lights next year. The red blue and green. I think there is definitly going to be some different coloured lights, so that there will be alot of fun for the vision system. This is something I'm realy hoping for to add more interesting programing aspects to the competition.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

multicolored lights does sound like a good challenge for next year, not to mention the fun of making the robot do the chameleon eyed thing with 2 cameras :D

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

I haven't heard any of the hints as to different colored lights (I've been way too busy with school), but I had a thought.

Although being really cool, it might just make it even harder for some teams to use the camera. Both rookie teams and those who just couldn't get the camera to work in the past might decide to ditch the thing right from the start of the build season.

My team (second year) was unable to get the camera working, we don't know why it didn't work but we will try to figure it out over the summer.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

You can download our 2006 robot code from FRC Soft.com

http://www.frcsoft.com/

It has the camera code in there to help you learn.



-

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

This makes me all too happy...

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...7&postcount=12

Now the real question is what and where will these lights be, assuming they are used?

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Just a thought to add to this, is maybe different lights will help set up for different things...

Like this year, you could dump low or shoot high... maybe red could aim lower, blue higher... multiple goals worth multiple values of points that you could possibly shoot through. Then based on height of goals and robots, some would be easier blocked than others.

I don't know, just a thought that different colors could set you up to aim for different tasks... (( which I don't quite think I portrayed the way I meant )) :o

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Here's the bigger question. Do you ever think they will change the game upon reaching a plateau like Einstein, hidden or not? (ie, suddenly changing it from green to red, blue, and green lights)
They have done stuff similar in the pre-alliance era, where in some games, qualification matches were 1 v 1 v 1, but the eliminations were 1 v 1. Also, the FVC game had a semi-similar type of change. The vex autonomous games and operator controlled games were completely seperate, with even slightly altered scoring systems, and both factored equally into your ranking. But there were no autonomous matches during the eliminations, purely operator controlled.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Personally think these lights could be used for 2 things team identifiers or vision system either which way it will put a mean twist on things, if its for a vision system you have a few options either get a couple of cameras and train each one for each color -OR- get one camera to search for all colors and for the other option your team allies may change during the match who you start your match with may not be who you end your match with another words during the match your allies and opponents will change at a decided interval rather then changing scoring situations (offense defense free for all, defense offense free for all respectively), but hey dave promised a hint at this years nationals and here it is color changing lights which as said before can change who your allies may be or where the scoring will be

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

How about different bonus goals? There are 2 or 3 goals for each team (or 3 or 4 goals for both teams), and the light randomly turns on above one of these goals, indicating everything scored in it is worth double. To make it even more fun the "bonus goal" could change every 30 seconds.

OR... there are at least 2 goals with an undesignated team color, and the lights above these goals will change to indicate which team they will score for. Imagine having to chase all over the field to score because your goal keeps moving!

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Hmm, a fun thought. Imaging if this year each robot had one of those display they could mount somewhere on their robot to allow other robots to lock onto them. Imagine robots locking onto eachother to perform defensive auto actions, fill eachother with balls, have "smart" avoidance systems for autonomous (to tell when they're about to hit someone, or someone is going to hit them), etc.
That has oh so many uses, the autonomous possibilities (not to mention operator controlled with the shooters this year) are endless!

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

That could get minorly dangerous and not so graciously professional... considering in this game, robots could've then shot balls at each other... not that pushing each other over is much better but still... locking on to other robots could have positive and negatives, depending how it is executed.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

I think that the possibility of makeing the game harder as the tournament goes along is a bigger possibility.

For 1/3 the matches, it is easy, than the next 1/3 they add something, than the last 1/3 they add something than for the Finals, they add something, for the final match, they add one last thing. Progressivly getting harder, but with more ways to score and to win.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Oh the possibilities :rolleyes:

Now the question is...
What will Dean do next!?!?

Tune in next kickoff to find out... until then we can only speculate :p

I'm so excited for next season now! Who needs post- and pre-seasons? Let's start the new one now! :p

I'm definately noticing mixed signals now, rethinking that light trick (( which I will admittingly say I fell for ))... Is he hinting at different light colors? or a game that gets progressively more difficult as you move towards finals? [both which have been speculated but I am restating for that fact that it's got me curious]

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

It could turn into a technical nightmare (of snafus), but:

I think it would be great to challenge the autonomous programmers, the drive teams, and the scouts by publishing match lists for qualifying without indicating which teams are on which alliance. You'd find out who your allies and opponents are only on the field after the start of the match, when you see the colored lights come on.

Of course this would also challenge the GDC, since they'd have to design a field with drive team positions that work equally well for either alliance.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

I suggested the idea somewhere else about rotating alliances. Meaning, the alliances would be randomly re-assigned half-way through the match. (The number of teams per alliance would always remain constant throughout the match). Scoring might be a large pain in the neck though.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

The downside to all this; if you score 10000 points while you are on blue alliance, but are then switched to green, you now have hurt yourself by scoring 10000 points for your opponents. If I were competing I simply wouldn't score until I was assigned to what I knew would be the alliance I ended on (for example, wait until the last 30 seconds or something).

The random starting alliance might work better, but you would still be forced to fix the alliances for the elimination rounds, or completely overhaul the playoff system.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

When I saw Dave announce this change to the rules, I thought to myself one thing: "This can't be right--it's that other Dave that's supposed to do odd things with the game design!"

Then he announced it was a joke. I was relieved--and I was teamless there!

I'm sure FIRST will concoct some interesting way to handle that sort of thing next year. What exactly they do is about as impossible to predict as the game itself.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

My thoughts, in order, as I watched this segment on teevee was:

1. He's kidding.
2. Do they make jokes at Championship Finals?
3. He has to be kidding.
4. What if he's not kidding?
5. He's kidding.
6. There are 12 really nervous FIRST programmers out there today, and about 1,000 who are laughing until Mountain Dew comes out of their noses.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Lol, Dave pulled that on us at West Michigan this year, except for instead of it being every 2 seconds, it was every .67 seconds... I think we figured it out a little quicker... ;)

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

My thoughts on hearing the trick was, "If we were down there, we'd probably have about 10 minutes to fix the code. They're probably telling the teams the exact color values the lights are shining at right now. Either that or the values are the perfect RGB values."

I know that changing my team's program to be able to lock on to any of the lights wouldn't be all that difficult. The whole changing colors thing could easily work next year.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

I thought they were actually going to do that for the final round, until of course he said just kidding :ahh: .

I already have a way of doing this with this year's camera. :cool:

Can't wait to see what next year's game is... sounds like it will have multiple goals/objects/scoring modes.

Only, what, 9 months or so till kickoff (putting countdown in my phone) :D

-Q

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

This one gave me a little bit of a scare at the time.

I think we can be pretty sure that there will be multiple and or changing colors, the question is what will they be used for? FIRST doesn't just provide us with fluke hints with no meaning.

*mark different game elements
*signal things that can be done with certian game elements at certian times
*game elements with different context at different times.
*provide fixed refrence which robot position can be triangulated off of
*one the fly alliance partitioning
*robot to robot communication

I think we will also be seeing an updated robot controller. From what i have pried out of various IFI guys, they are going to re-evaluate it and the general feeling is that it had outlived its usefullness. I am wondering if we will see an updated vision system as well. Looking for multiple colors simultaneously is not possible with a single CMU Cam. It requires changing the color window and looking for each color individually. In my mind, this is already getting into the territory of hackage. We could of course use multiple cameras.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

This is true--but they don't always mean they will pan out that way. (Look at the footage of Kickoff 2004.)

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Are you referring to the IR beacon thing? I seem to remember something about FIRST claiming they would come back in 2005.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

How about this? One goal, three colors. Green for 1st, and 4th period. Blue and red based on who wins auton. hmmmm

cool?

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

I will say yes as a possibility, but not nessicarily Cold cathode tubes. There would be (based on what was said) 3 colors, which means 8 tubes each, so 24 tubes total...that's one pretty large thing if they place them all in one box like this year. However, they could use LEDs or something a little brighter.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Just FYI: Dave originally told that to us at the West Michigan Regional as an April Fools joke. He didn't, however, say it was something to think about for next year.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Yes, I heard it at West Michigan too. I bought it at first, until he said they would change every .67 seconds in the final period. Then I remembered it was April Fools Day! :D

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

It wouldn't be Mountain Dew in Atlanta! Pepsi products are all but Taboo in that city! :D

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

I think if there was any hint in it at all about next year, it is this:

Lights.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Lights Lights Lights..

Grr, so as Corey and I stood on Einstein as Dave was announcing this, we nearly had a heart attack..GRR..

I have a feeling that lights will most definitely be involved in next years game. What kinds of lights..who knows..but lights.

Secondly, it makes me wonder as Sean pointed out earlier...maybe they will change up scoring or change something during the games..who knows? As Dave said..maybe they want to make the game harder and harder.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

who know's?
remember at the beginning of this season the hint was pool noodles, and they just turned out to be for bumpers, not an actual game peice...
it could just be somethink like that again....like a diversion.

ooo sneaky.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

well the first thing to notice is that the lights the women were holding, were LED's instead of cathodes, the shield like thing dave was holding were cathodes, thes both had red and blue lights, but the alliance LED's on the robots display red and blue, perhaps this has some meaning as well.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

I highly doubt the lights will be used in game pieces, because first off the game piece will be fragile especially with the CC lights and secondly they will need lots and lots of batteries.

So If you really wanna think about it, think about a nonmoveable field element or your robot.

Or perhaps this clue also has something to do with the 2000 mailboxes that were ordered to be sent to the FIRST headquarters..... ;)

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

im not a programer, but i dont think you could train a camera to look for all three colors, because red, green, and blue make white lihgt, and then the cam might freak out becasue there will be nothing but white light, un less the match is in the dark, which would be pritty cool, but maby you can program for three diffrne colors

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

I'm not a programmer, but I imagine you could make it look fore red, green, and blue seperately by putting a switch on the OI to tell the RC to change what color it's looking for.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

I don't know how serious they are about the changing colors, but the idea was clearly evident throughout the finals, first with the three LED panels, then with the cold cathode shield. Even if this sort of thing doesn't make it into the game next year, its worth using it as a development project during the off season (then again, thats probably exactly why they did that). Either way, it will give our programmers something to do during summer.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Picture this-

different tasks around the field with different colored light guides. You program the robot to visit the different stations and use the guides to do the tasks. The field has screens so the robot has to explore to find the lights in auto.

Sounds a bit like Lego League but arent those kids now of FRC ages?

The visual appeal of this would be great. And the random play patterns of the robots would be challenging.


Of course we could strap colored diodes on punching clowns and have the robots stuff them in a volkswagen....

So now Kristian and Alexa-you have some homework to do- he he he

WC :cool:

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

It wouldn't really be hard to cope with this....all you do is change the filter on the camera unless the light changes spontaneously or blinks..in which case.....

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

I would be prepared to bet with some one (you choose the stakes) that there will be multiple colored lights next year. I am not sure if they will be one color for each team or one for each goal or for each period or for something different but there will be more than one color.

I will also say that unless they give us a new camera we will not have the color changing every 2 or 3 seconds since it would take that long for the camera to initialize the new color. I cannot wait to see what they will come up with. I am hoping the give an opportunity to combine autonomous functions (like aiming the gun) with user control.

The camera is only capable of finding one color at a time and must re initialize between colors, this process takes a couple of seconds during which the camera cant be moving. To make multiple colors a realistic goal the colors would have to either change in a predicible pattern (ie between periods) Or remain the same color for a substantial amount of time.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

I think that the game will be very confusing. After reading the ideas i have combined some of them to create this. The next match will have moving targets. They probably wont move very fast but after 30 seconds or so (depending on how long the game is) the targets will change. There will be 3 targets. But the catch is that each color is a certain amount of points (red=3, blue=2, green=1) or whatever. so now everyone is chasing moving targets and defending at the same time. Idk. but it sounds like a very interesting game. :D :]

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Lights aside, I think the practical joke alone is going to have a major impact on next year...

I wouldn't be so worried about suddenly changing colors or whatever, I think that the true point of concern is in the idea that suddenly the game could change without warning. This could be an advanced warning from FIRST. I don't think there was anyone in the arena who didn't recieve a huge wake-up call when they said they were changing the rules.

I don't know about you, but I think that next year the mere possibility that there could be a major change in the game rules for the championship finals alone could make me think a little harder about the design of our teams robot.

Great job to everyone this weekend!

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

it only makes sense. they used this year with one color to test the cathode idea. now they get to make it hard

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

I love the possibilities of multiple light colors... but I do see one small issue:

This year with just the green lights, I did see a number of cameras pick up other green sources besides the goal light. I saw a match on Galileo where a robot ran out of the starting box towards the goal, it's camera turned around, and it shot it's full round in the direction of MOE up in the stands.

If the lights changed to red I could see a team like 173 (the shirts in the stands, and the robot itself) as a potential target, or any of the many teams using blue. The current rules prohibit the use of colors designed to distract the vision system, and it's logical to assume if the color palette is to increase, so must the restrictions on team colors to keep everything in order on the field. It probably won't be a major problem, but it's just a thought based on what I've seen with the green this year.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

I always knew Dave was the king of game hints, but never that Dave... :p

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

2v2v2 anyone? Each team has a certain color

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

has moe had a problem with this in the past two years?

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Our robot was the one Marc mentioned in his post. We shot a full clip (9 balls) at a MOE mentor who decided to stand up during autonomous :(

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Yes.

In Philadelphia in 2005, our camera locked dead onto MOE every time we lined up on the blue side of the field.

This year, at nationals, our camera had a sporadic lock on the MOE section of the stands in Galileo whenever we pointed our robot at them in the starting box. The dashboard feedback showed that the blob was bouncing around, but it was much stronger than anything of the random noise we got in the pits.

While clearly not intentional, MOE's bright green jersey's ARE confused for green targets by the CMUCam.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Lol, that was funny, Bedford express was in a panicked huddle at first! :D

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

As has already been mentioned, this rumor surfaced at West Michigan. One only needed a quick look at the field to see how impossible this would have been.
On the drivers stations are red lights and blue lights. Also, there are red and blue LEDs on the robots. So, if it were true, the robots would be shooting at the other robots and drivers instead of the goal.
Of course, the ramp campers and dumpers would still be OK.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

This was close to my thoughts. Since the games seem to be 3 on 3 for a while. Why not a red, blue, and green target per alliance. Each alliance member chooses a colored target to track and each target is for a different autonomous task. Strategy is no longer just choose a starting position and a task, but now also requires tracking a different color.

Game clues this early!!??!! :ahh:

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Most definitely yes. During one of our matches on Galileo we had a trim problem on our turret joystick, so in the brief second between when the robot is enabled and when autonomous begins our camera turned enough that MOE sitting in the stands entered the edge of the field of view and became a bigger target than the light. We ended up firing all our balls straight at them.

We're working on a MOE detection algorithm for next year.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Anyone get a picture of 'Dave's ladies' holding the lights or him and the shield?

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

I'm super sorry if this has been posted. I skimmed this thread first and searched. Anyway, one of my friends poitned out, if you look at the 2007 gmae hint picture http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...2007+game+hint

and you look on the back of the bot you can see the reflection of a red light, a ,green light and a blue light. :ahh:

What if different lights were like stop lights? You could only move a certain direction when a certain light was on? Tricky.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

This seems to me a reason FIRST would do it; so you have to figure out a way to detect the target but not the drivers stations.

We solved alot of the accidental targeting issues by severely limiting the camera's range of view; the camera was not allowed to tilt low enough to see robots, and was not allowed to tilt any higher than something like 45 degrees. It also wasn't allowed to pan more than 50 degrees in either direction, and wasn't activated in autonomous mode until we started turning to face the goal (we wouldn't search while driving towards the goal).

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

I don't think the lights will indicate a change in teams, but I do think they will show up on the 2007 game field. Perhaps the lights will be different colors for different matches, and you won't know until each match starts...

Nonetheless, there is no question that the camera will become an even more essential part of having a strong robot, so teams that had troubles this year should work on getting proficient with the camera this summer. FIRST has been weening us into using the camera 2 years now, and I think it will be almost essential to be successful in the game next year. Also, I think auton will be essential to winning the game next year, as it set the precedence for the match this year, and gave the winning team a big advantage...

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Think Realisticly guys, FIRST changes the game COMPLEATLY, EVERY YEAR, what makes half of you that are posting an idea for next years game, well, still thinking about this years game.

Maybe three balls with LED's, moving targets, like football, or that Harry Potter game, where you have to diliver to the human player and he has to shoot the balls into a goal across the feild or close to home, (thinking of all three years games, 04-06), The goal is owned by the allince (red/blue) that has the majority of balls in that goal, green balls count as Multiplyers for the owner of that goal. All balls have built in LED's, on top of this, there is a triangular goal that robots can eather shoot or hang off of to score more points.

The only sencor that can be used douring atonomus, is infored

O yea, this should be one wicked game

Like i said, combining games from 03-06

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

I wondered if there were team members ready to wet themselves.

My fear was that they were going to say, "OK, now we'll delay for XXX minutes while the teams reprogram." Multi-GRRR.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

I was at nationals this year. When they showed me that I was laughing because we didn't come close to the finals, but when they said it was a hint for next year i freaked out :eek: . I am a programmer and our team couldn't even get the camera working this year but am looking forward to a challenge. So I'm kinda praying its just a rumor while sort of hoping its not at the same time. :yikes:

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Ask on here for help; all the programmers will help you with this.

I'm going to be experimenting during the off season with various things along with other team members, I'm thinking of trying to get the "colored" standard light bulbs, hooking a few up and hanging them somewhere, then having the robot try to go do something different for each one when it is turned on. I definetly want to be ready in case they do this next year.

And remember everyone, just last year we were trying to use the camera without balls as a scoring object. As has been said, FIRST could get mean enough to light scoring objects.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Lol GP mate GP.. I just know for a fact that atleats 100 programmers in first are gonna have some summer fun with the cammera and some lEd's XD

Pavan

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

I personally don't like the light. Hopefully first will have a new auto program for next year.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

i think that next year, the game will take a twist on einstein, whatever the game is, there will be a twist added on einstein. Dave, when we was introducing the finals on einstein said that the game was not challenging enough for the 12 teams taking the field, that is when he introduced the three lights, even though he was joking he introduced it as a challenge for the teams on einstein, look for a twist and challenge on einstein next year

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

But what if its acutally not about the coloured lights themselves? We already have a Blue and Red alliance.. Why not add a Green one?

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

No no no, there will not be multi-colored lights next year. There will instead be a multi-colored light.

Green, Blue, Red... wait a minute. Red, Green, Blue. RGB. By varying the intensity of those three colors you can pretty much create any color in the visible spectrum.

I'm seeing purple lights, morphing into yellow... and into an orange. :)

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Last I heard, the folks in FIRST Engineering were working on making the paisley and plaid filters for the lights work properly. The potential implications, should they succeed, are enormous.

-dave

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Plaid filters.... If that were possible, I'd have them in my room already. Cuz plaid is just friggin awesome.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Amen!

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

i wasnt at nationals can someone claify what the hint was exactly?

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

The green light the announcer guy showed us just before the final round started flashing green, red, and blue with variable speed flashes; and he suggested that the multi colored light would be implemented in next year's match (perhaps for targetting/scoring which certain teams could score with one extra mode which both or neither teams could score).

That what you were looking for?

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Yeah thanks alot

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Just because of the pattern in past years the game piece should be a box of some sort right? If it is does anyone have any game ideas for lights and boxes?

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

I think it would be funnay if they implemented some form of redlight/greenlight :p

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

That would be more fun for the programmers than the rest of the Robotics teams :D

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

There is no true pattern, see years prior to 03. I know at least from 2000-2002 was all balls, 2003 Sterilite Bins, 2004 back to balls, 2005 Tetrahedrons, 2006 balls. So as you can see there is no real patter, I know in other years there have been things like "floppies" which were round fabric discs filled with packing peanuts, there have been inner tubes before as well. So you never know what to expect in FIRST, although a box with a light in it would be rather interesting...

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

This is a very interesting thread.

over the past 5 years, I have learned not to listen to anything Dave says before the kickoff or any rumor I hear that involves Dave. I am saying this now, but I am probably going to go nuts when he starts messing with our head again this fall.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

I don't know about you, but he already did that with me. Last time i saw him at the Smithsonian, he was wandering around our Walker Project. After a while he came back and told me that he just talked to Woodie and we just gave him an idea for next years game. :yikes:
Since then, I've been walking around the Baby Walker trying to figure out what the heck is going to happen, and what part interested him the most. :p

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Yes.

Why wait? :)

-dave

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Oh my, it's started already...break out the Advil and straightjackets, everyone.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Remember when Dave dropped a clue, and CD posters analyzed it day and night until we went berserk?
Well, he did it all again and then the angst got worse and worse and now you see we've gone completely out of our minds, and ... (sirens)
They're coming to take me away, ha ha,
They're coming to take me away, hee hee,
Ho ho, ha ha,
To the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time,
And I'll be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats,
And they're coming to take me away!

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

^ Paisley would calm everything down nicely.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

"Oh no sir, they've gone plaid!" :eek:

Coming soon to a theatre near you in early 2007: FIRSTballs, The Movie!

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Perhaps mailboxes with lights in them? :rolleyes:

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

I know this wasn't included in the joke-clue at championships, but this seems to point directly to a fourth color: Red, blue, and green are in that picture--but also yellow.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Just so I know,
how - bad - do Dave's clues get?

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

If you knew what 1000 users want to know, and have known for months, how bad would your clues get? Now imagine that you've done this for 7 or 8 years, so you're really good at making clues.

Some of Dave's hints are 10 times worse.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

This is a warmup. Dave's just getting a feel for how the CD users react compared to other years, and he will use this information to tactically create the most confusion with the least amount of posts possible.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Just a thought, what if instead of a color they used lcd displays and the camera had to reconize 1 of over 16,000 colors individualy? Like this shade of blue means go home, that shade of purple means stop.

Re: Varied color light trick...
 

Then they would have to release what those colors where. I would hope. Else it might be a mess.

For multiple colors that change, if all you want to do it track where it is, you could either program it in. Or have a few switches on the OI that set a value for what the color it is looking for should be. I love the camera. I hope to see more use of it this year.