Dave's updated signature
 

I just saw that he has added this to his signature;

"The answers to one of the most oft-debated questions of the year is sitting right there in their hands, but they refuse to see it because it does not conform to their expectations."

Now, this is driving me even more crazy with the two game hint threads because he makes it sounds like we almost have the answer....

Re: Dave's updated signature
 

You could be headed in the exact wrong direction and Dave would say that just so he could entertain himself with your responses ;)

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I think Dave has more fun with the hints then the game itself.

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Dave was an evil genius in his previous life.

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In his previous life?? Don't you mean he's an evil genius in this life???

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Dave's grammar is broken.

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ehhh..... I wouldn't go around calling dave a genius. Maybe MASTERMIND!!! EVIL MASTERMIND!!!!

-vivek :rolleyes:

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And there is proof!!!

http://thelaverytory.blogspot.com/20...e-on-mars.html

Re: Dave's updated signature
 

"now, this is driving me even more crazy with the two game hint threads because he makes it sounds like we almost have the answer"
so this must mean were close right:confused:

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No, not necessarily. And, funny enough, it might not have anything to do with the clues/Kick Off - but can be implied/applied. Great fun, wordplay.

Re: Dave's updated signature
 

It's a water game.

Re: Dave's updated signature
 

In a way, it's a little disturbing. Here we have several hundreds, perhaps thousands, of mostly intelligent people looking at the game hints, and the statement in the sig is that we "refuse" to see it because it does not conform to our expectations.

If we speculate that Dave's statement is related to the game hint(s), then what is it that we're not seeing? What doesn't conform to our expectations?

Is it reasonable to discard everything we learned in the past before evaluating this year's hint(s)?

Personally, I can wait until January 5th to find out what it is we may be accused of missing here, but....

I feel so inadequate.

Don

Re: Dave's updated signature
 

The statue is holding a paintbrush in one hand and a palette and brushes in the other.

A palette is a thin oval board or tablet on which a painter lays or mixes his colors.

Choices? Selections?

Re: Dave's updated signature
 

That meshes with the capability of the IR board.
<edit>Choices = Engineering Decisions ???</edit>

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Ahh, so we are scoring bananas into a pool of Jello.

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Yes, but no. We all debate whether or not it's going to be a water game, but yet we received clues that point toward a water fountain (assuming the clue is Copley square looking at the Copley Square Fountain) , and we received an electronics board with the ability to detect (frequency) waves. (a property of water on a vastly known scale).

Water Game? Not quite.

Remember when we all had huge expectations of a stair case on the field when the Stairway to Heaven clue was release in 2003 prior to the 2004 season, and it ended up being three 3" steps & some platforms??

I do.

My point is, we always debate a water game, and through a play of words & items this year, we are given clues that reference water in their own unique ways.

I believe this is a statement that we are all sick of the whole water game guesses, and this is the closest we are going to get.
In the immediate future at least.

Re: Dave's updated signature
 

It's a worldwide triathlon.

-The robot will need to:
•Fly to Japan
•Travel autonomously along the Silk Road while using the IR controller as a TV b-gone the whole way.
•Swim to Boston using only last years ringers as flotation devices and end at that square. Maybe signify the finish by placing bananas in a pool of jello..

It's perfect!

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There have been questions floating around all year about a new control system. There it is, "right there in their hands". Since it doesn't "conform to their expectations" it is not obvious. There will be no control system and the robots will be driven with television remote controls.

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I hope not.

Maybe it's a lot simpler than we think: Copley Square. Oft-debated is 'what is the game piece?' Ergo, game piece is a square. Box, maybe.

It is fun to speculate, then see how close we got. "Shovel's show" and "Montana" indeed!

You know: Even if we guessed it 100% exactly, we wouldn't know until kickoff anyway...

Re: Dave's updated signature
 

Clearly.

Now we can take what he said to so many levels.

"...the answer is sitting right there in their hands..."

What sits in our hands? A TV Remote? A computer mouse? Bananas? Glasses of water?

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Don't you see?! The IR sensor won't be used to play the game.... It IS the game! We will have to pick up hundreds of IR sensors and dump them in bins.

That's what he means by "sitting right there in their hands."

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What a waste of perfectly good money. Then again, so is investing in dave's hairbrain schemes... Although it would make for some fun rounds. The challenge is to not only dump them but not to break as many as possible!

Re: Dave's updated signature
 

"The answers to one of the most oft-debated questions of the year is sitting right there in their hands, but they refuse to see it because it does not conform to their expectations."


I know dave nromally tries to screw us up... and lead us in the wrong path every year.... but maybe hes expecting us to think that so this year he gave us a real clue.....

I can get to translations from this.... Some people in another thread said that thos coordinates were on a statue maybe there is some graffitti on their hands but we didn't notice it because we wouldn't ecpect FIRST to do that.....

Or maybe the thought to be coordinates were that exact for a reason and everyone who has been saying they are just a rough estimate is wrong... just because numbers that exace do not conform to our expextions.....


Or you could just take the third number.... It's not height its depth.... everyone in the area grab a shovel.... and lets start digging!!!!!

Re: Dave's updated signature
 

So if his hints are always wrong/off we should indeed look at alternative coordinates, such as the ones that point to antarctica.

We should also look at our feet instead of our hands.

We should also expect a circle instead of a square.

So we're now looking for combinations of coordinates where (perhaps a monkey?) is playing its feet in a circle.

Re: Dave's updated signature
 

If memory serves, Dave made a reference to a water spider in a post last year.
To me, the water spider legs are like the spider legs of the rack. It's a matter of interpretation and perspective.

Re: Dave's updated signature
 

So should we be looking at hands? Maybe the game peice/scoring structure will have something to do with hands. Or maybe we have to build debaiting robots.:yikes:

-Sam

Re: Dave's updated signature
 

Since we are dissecting Dave's every word, I am surprised that no one has dissected the signature phase just before the line “The answer to one…”

I notice the words “six or five” is in the paragraph. That maybe related to the five LED on the new sensor board.

Possible game scenario: Did the team tracked five stations or touch five zones?
The new sensor board maybe for referees to automatically record the number of stations or boundaries the robots have crossed. The sensor must be visible on the robot and the referees will read off the count on the board.

:]

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Are we all just agreeing that the oft-debated question is about FIRST. This could be a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy scenario where the question is something like "what do you get when you multiply six by nine?"

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lmao

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those hnts are breaking our heads

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Water game? Water polo?

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Perhaps not water polo, but polo...we have to build robotic horses to play polo.

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no water it's winter and the pool in the north are frozen.....

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And now it says...
So, who are "the two"?

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I'm new here. Forgive my ignorance but who is Dave and why is he important?

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Dave Lavery, Program Executive for Interplanetery Exploration for NASA and one of the "Annointed Three".

Dean Kamen, Founder of FIRST, Woodie Flowers, the "Grandfather of Robotic Competition" and Dave Lavery make up the "Trinity of FIRST."

Re: Dave's updated signature
 

Not only this, but he is a member of the Game Design Committee. This should explain why every post he makes is eventually over-analyzed. He also does the game animations each year. You'll see him on the Kickoff webcast.

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As in Trinity church that the coordinated seem to point to?

Thanks for the answer. Dean and Woodie I know of. Woodie was one of my profs at MIT.

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AHA! Dave, you have finally slipped up - I've figured it out.

Using the previous quote with this line as the cryptovariable in a Feister cypher, you generate the encryption key needed to open the manuals. Hopefully they'll be released soon so I can try it out.

Don't worry, your secret is safe with me - I won't share the details of the game with anyone until after kickoff.

Re: Dave's updated signature
 

Dave may be referring to the two types of game pieces that we will have this year.
Mabye there will be an autonomous mode at the beginning and the end, to make all of the programmers happy:D