[andrew418]

I don't think it's necessary to actually verify the coordinates with a GPS. FIRST would have assumed that everyone would access the coordinates with Google Earth or Maps, so they would have checked the location on the Google software itself.

Also, I'm not sure that the object at the coordinate location is the statue. From the pictures of the square I have looked at, the statue is further away from the church, in the direction of the Boston Public Library. The only thing near where the object should be is a large, antique lamp-post, with four globes. When you zoom in as far as Google Earth will let you, you can make out four roundish white objects around a middle dark area, which looks like the lamp post should from above.

So if the coordinates are pointing to the lamppost, the game might have to deal with round, globe shaped scoring objects, or posts like in the FTC this year.

About the third number. The two most plausible explanations that I have seen are that it is a bearing (possibly towards Manchester) and that it is the number of hours from when the email was sent until FIRST kickoff. I calculated that the bearing towards Manchester was approx 338 degrees, which is only slightly off. However, given the precision of the decimal, it would not make sense that FIRST would be so far off. Similarly, some posts have said that a bearing of 342 degrees from the lamppost leads to the Globe Bar and Grill. If that is so, such precision is unnecessary to simply point towards a large object several hundred yards away. The idea about the time to kickoff also seemed close, but I calculated that 342.242026 hours from when the email was sent (16:47:12 -0500 GMT) gave a time of Jan 4th, 11:01 and 43 seconds PM, about 10 hours before kickoff. I may be wrong, but I think that none of the ideas that have been presented for the third number are correct.

It is reasonably certain that the first two numbers are GPS coordinates (the chances of arbitrarily arriving at the coordinates of a lamppost in Boston at that level of precision are almost negligable). But we still need to come up with an explanation for the third number.

The only thing I can think of is that it is an angle above the horizon, or that it is a bearing towards something further away, which lies more directly on the path of 342.242026 degrees.

ANy other suggestions?