[holygrail]

Here are the things I think are important for the info we have so far.
1. I think the significance of the 12/21/12 release date is that if you add the 1s and 2s together you get 3/3/3. Three groups of 3.
2. This was game hint 3, even though you really have to stretch to assume that there were two other official hints.
3. Pi was the key to decoding the hint (a version of 3)
4. The Rick Astley video was from exactly the three minute mark
5. This doesn’t have to do with three, but the box dimensions on the chassis are smaller this year.

Okay, so here is what I think it all means.
I think we had correctly figured out that the 3:00 mark on the Rick Astley hint means that we will have 3:00 matches this year. This bothered me because I, like most people (I think) would rather play more matches rather than fewer.

But if there are 3 alliances of 3 robots each, you can still have each robot play about 10 matches in qualification rounds with only about 2/3 of the matches. Usually at a 60 robot regional, you have to play about 100 matches for each robot to be in 10 matches. With 9 robots on the field, you only need 67 matches to do the same thing. I don’t even want to think about what this means for scouting though.

Fewer, longer matches also means more time with robots on the field and less reset time. Also, more interesting for the spectators.

This also goes along with the smaller robot dimensions. To have more robots on the field, they need to be smaller.

3/3/3 – 3 robots, 3 alliances, 3 minute matches

As for the nature of the game, I feel like it is much more speculative. I do feel like there may be a big tower in the middle of the field for something, but I wouldn’t bet much money on that thought. I feel more confident about the idea that you will have to hold up something heavy since it is (kind of) in both clues. The Rick Astley song – “Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down” and in the cypher “A dinner missed, holding weight.”