Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/FRC Game Hint #2
 

Along the lines of the Paul Revere thing, I find it interesting that the last coordinate 342.242026 when subtracted from 360 is ~17.76 (17.757974).

Right neighborhood for this date to be relevant.

B

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/FRC Game Hint #2
 

didnt he ride in 1775? and considering the first four digits of your difference (17.757974)..yeah you get my point right? oh and if you ask me, that painting of paul revere by copely, i could say its a portrait of jack black rofl.

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/FRC Game Hint #2
 

Me and some of our team members came to the conclusion that it doesn't matter what the coordinates point to. they point to Copley square in Boston just to make it complex.

we believe that the game will have a coordinate system of some sort. it can not be GPS or any thing that uses GPS technology because they would need in excess of $100,000 worth of equipment for every field. it will be a coordinate system either with a gridded carpet or 2 to 3 lights with different colors for us to do triangulations.

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/FRC Game Hint #2
 

Actually April 18, 1775

The point is the IR decoder and the 'One if by Land, Two if by Sea' thing are connected.

B

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/FRC Game Hint #2
 

How about an end game autonomous that will have one of two different methods of scoring depending on how many transmitters are active? "One" and "Two" could indicate which method the robots need to use for scoring.

I so much want to watch the end game be autonomous! C'mon GDC!

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/FRC Game Hint #2
 

I agree. The IR decoder and the coordinates are just to point us to the fact we will be doing some navigation. The actual coordinates mean little, maybe designed to make everyone nuts.

The IR decoder is set up for 1 in 4 decoding. This means will probably will have 4 targets/landmarks to deal with. The decoder also has a relatively wide beam window, I believe +/- 40 degrees (please correct me if I am wrong). 4 transmitters would cover all for sides of the arena or 360 degrees.

B

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/FRC Game Hint #2
 

A few dead ends:

>When used as side lengths, these numbers do not form a legal triangle.
>When summed, these numbers produce 314.51859. First three digits of Pi yes, conclusive? probably not.
>The reciprocal of dividing these numbers is 9.00218, though I don't believe the number nine could lead many places
>No matter how they are arranged of figured into circle-based formulas, these numbers prove to be inconclusive.

For now, I believe the geographic trails of thought are the most likely.

-q

p.s. In an office somewhere, FIRST game designers laugh.

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/FRC Game Hint #2
 

This clue kind of reminds me of this thing we did back in 7th grade where we had to guess holiday songs from a picture. One of the clues was an alphabet which skipped the letter L (noel was the song). Looking at the clue it struck me as something simmilar because the only number that is not used is 8. Im not sure if this is relevent or not but maybe the number 8 is significant.

8 sided playing pieces?

-Sam

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/FRC Game Hint #2
 

That............would be interesting.

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/FRC Game Hint #2
 

The whole game is never totally revealed in these "hints" - only obscure parts are.

The hard work has been accomplished - lat & longit, takes us to Copley Square in Boston, where atop the Hancock building is a beacon. Which has the capability of emitting 4 outputs - red solid, red flashing, blue solid, blue flashing.

These are the standard FIRST colors, and we now have included in the kit, an IR board with 4 selections on it. 4 choices and 4 beacon outputs, hmmm...

Perhaps, one part of the game will be that each human player will select from the 4 IR choices mentioned earlier, and that is what will establish your desired game parameters (scoring location, value, match length of time, starting or ending location, alliance partner choice, something that would influence the outcome, ect).

Human player interaction using the IR - its "in their hands".

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/FRC Game Hint #2
 

Or how about.... An autonomous end-game where the IR beacons tell the robots which quad of the field is the bonus zone... It would be wild to see all the robots racing autonomously to the same zone :) On second thoughts, maybe the two alliances would have different zones ....

The trouble with IR detectors is if you have more than two different codes going off, they may interfere with each other, but a foolproof way to use them is to have multiple emitters all sending the same synched signal. It's not much of a technical stretch for the field to be surrounded by a dozen or more high power emitters (just a few $'s). Then at the beginning of end-game, the robots could be put in auto-mode and then broadcast a master signal to all the robots symultaniously.

Each zone could have it's own homing code, but the chance of interference would be high.

Either way it would be an exciting end to a match.

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/FRC Game Hint #2
 

I'm sure the GDC gets a huge kick out of reading these things. How ridiculous we must sound...

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/FRC Game Hint #2
 

x axis y axis z axis?

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/FRC Game Hint #2
 

If I was on the GDC, I would have an internal bet with all my other GDC members as to how many posts were going to be made about the clue(s) on CD.

The winner or winners would have to reveal what the clue meant in front of everyone at Kickoff & see all the looks on people's faces as it finally "clicks".

I think that's a nice prize for guessing a number don't you?

I mean.. we get to guess about things like clues, and get an entire year of fun out of it. Guessing a number of posts should be worth at least 15 minutes of fame on a NASA webcast & in front of a physical audience of >500 people or so at kickoff. Don't you? :D

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/FRC Game Hint #2
 

could someone please summarize the previous posts, anyone who has read the entire thread?

sorry but i dont really feel like reading 400+ posts, even on CD