[EricH]

More hint removal/analysis.

Removal: hovercraft. Building a FIRST robot to act like a hovercraft and still pass inspection would be very difficult.

Analysis: English Channel. Difficult to cross without special equipment (boat, hovercraft, tunnel. We've already ruled out boat & hovercraft, and tunnel is impractical.) Probably going to be different surfaces, one much more difficult than the rest and placed in the middle of the field.

Analysis: fox in the henhouse. What happens when a fox gets into the henhouse? The chickens (obviously not Thunderchickens) panic. Two explanations: either that's all of us at some point during the season (hint release and kickoff come to mind) or something on the field will scatter if a robot hits an area. Remember the ball dump in '04? I suspect that 1) the game object will be easy to scatter and 2) that the game object will scatter if and only if a robot (fox) hits a certain target area (henhouse), probably in auto mode. Of course, I could be all wrong, and the game object is some form of chicken...

Removal: Whack the Billfred. Logistical problems (again). Billfred obviously can't be in 8 places at once. Nuff' said.