Game hints for FRC...

[gabrielau23]

Does anybody know when they're coming out? Lol maybe it's still too early and I'm too excited, but I'm just wondering. Also, do any teams have hints on how to decode these hints? I remember last year for Rebound Rumble there was lots of speculation on how "very fast counters" would be used for the game, but our team's guess was totally off. If you've had success, would you mind sharing some tips?
RAID 2537--G.A.

[Mark McLeod]

The first hint came out already.
IR Transmitter (fc13-004)

[Taylor]

Let's not forget the possible nonhints ...

[akoscielski3]

Use the search tool. There's already a month old thread on this.

[Siri]

Aaron: I think this might actually be different. It looks like his main (at least longest) point is in asking for perennial tips for analyzing hints, rather than discussion of the hints themselves. (ie thuis thread could stand perennially with or without any unresolved game hints.)

If so:

I'd argue there's no wrong way to interpret a hint. (You won't actually get the game, but since when is that the point? ) They're mostly for fun. If you really do want to get somewhere, it's very hint-dependent. Use reasonable logic, recall what FIRST officials have said before (decide what to trust), and ultimately understand FIRST's goals and constraints in game development and what they logically need to in/exclude. (But where's the fun in that?) Other than that, a lot of it comes down to creative association, persistent Googling, image property lookups, and knowing (how to find) a lot of different things. Recognizing GPS coordinates, decoding poems, calculating the width of a bent polycarbonate piece based on guessing its thickness from a CAD rendering, trying to avoid nightmare flashbacks in seeing an IR transmitter on FIRST Choice (just me?)...

Basically you engage in a lot of craziness for brainstorming and then analyze the results in light of cold hard logic, iterate extensively, and accept you may still be wrong (or right) and figure out how to deal with all contingencies.
Does anyone else get the feeling FIRST does this for practice game analysis? And to tease us into insanity, of course. (But we knew that)

If not, suggest closing so no one else falls into the trap I have. It might be kind of a fun thread, though

[akoscielski3]

Originally Posted by Siri

Aaron: I think this might actually be different. It looks like his main (at least longest) point is in asking for perennial tips for analyzing hints, rather than discussion of the hints themselves. (ie thuis thread could stand perennially with or without any unresolved game hints.)
...

I see this now. Miss read the first post and the previous posts before me.

[ttldomination]

Originally Posted by dcarr

They did say that - but - for what other possible purpose would an IR transmitter be useful? While perhaps not exclusively specific to the 2013 game, it does seem like an item like this would be related to the game in some capacity (but so are motors, compressors, etc....it doesn't really tell us anything about the game).

This logic is slightly flawed as it assumes that all pieces in first choice have something or another to do with the game. The graphics cards, saws, and thermometers and such are just a couple of things that will most likely not make their way onto your machine, but are perhaps just something nice to pick up.

Originally Posted by gabrielau23

Does anybody know when they're coming out? Lol maybe it's still too early and I'm too excited, but I'm just wondering. Also, do any teams have hints on how to decode these hints? I remember last year for Rebound Rumble there was lots of speculation on how "very fast counters" would be used for the game, but our team's guess was totally off. If you've had success, would you mind sharing some tips?
RAID 2537--G.A.

Game hint analysis is usually...a longshot. Awhile ago, I likened trying to figure out the game to shooting a faraway target with a shotgun. Trying to figure out a game hint, is a similar scenario, except now you have a pistol.

The target's still a mile away, the weather conditions are still horrible, etc. While everyone takes multiple shots, there's no way of knowing if someone actually hit anything until you get close enough to see if (kickoff).

- Sunny G.

[dcarr]

Originally Posted by ttldomination

This logic is slightly flawed as it assumes that all pieces in first choice have something or another to do with the game. The graphics cards, saws, and thermometers and such are just a couple of things that will most likely not make their way onto your machine, but are perhaps just something nice to pick up.

True, of course. But unless there is some other workshop-related use for IR devices, I think it's safe to say that those products are game/robot related. The previous game with IR transmitters pre-dates me, so it will be interesting to see what the GDC has in store this time around.

[ttldomination]

Originally Posted by dcarr

True, of course. But unless there is some other workshop-related use for IR devices, I think it's safe to say that those products are game/robot related. The previous game with IR transmitters pre-dates me, so it will be interesting to see what the GDC has in store this time around.

Perhaps I am in denial because my team struggled with this last time, but I seriously hope the remote is for pit displays or something.

- Sunny G.

[synth3tk]

Originally Posted by dcarr

True, of course. But unless there is some other workshop-related use for IR devices, I think it's safe to say that those products are game/robot related. The previous game with IR transmitters pre-dates me, so it will be interesting to see what the GDC has in store this time around.

If the GDC has something in store for it, then I hope it's not akin to the last game with IR blasters. It was a train wreck, to say the least. Great idea, but it just didn't perform as well as anyone hoped.

[DRH2o]

End Game -- we will be interfacing with the field to raise or lower something.
Just a Curiosity

http://www.andymark.com/FIRST-Choice-p/fc13-037.htm

http://www.andymark.com/FIRST-Choice-p/fc13-082.htm

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by DRH2o

End Game -- we will be interfacing with the field to raise or lower something.
Just a Curiosity

http://www.andymark.com/FIRST-Choice-p/fc13-037.htm

http://www.andymark.com/FIRST-Choice-p/fc13-082.htm

I agree with you, but not because of the links you posted. The first has a lot of general uses, and is probbably the result of some stock room cleaning rather than to aid us in the game. He second has almost no conceivable connection with lifting something. It's basically a fancy form of shaft coupling.

Why do I believe that it will be a lifting style endgame? Because it appears as if the GDC uses the FTC endgame to test out FRC endgames (probbably in order to promote collablration between FTC and FRC teams). Take last year for example: we saw ramps being balanced. Saw that in the 2011 FTC endgame. The lifting the crates for bonus points was a huge crowd pleaser in 2012 FTC, and the GDC has done similar things for FRC the past. I'm guessing a return of the 2007 style lifting of other robots.

[dcarr]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

I agree with you, but not because of the links you posted. The first has a lot of general uses, and is probbably the result of some stock room cleaning rather than to aid us in the game. He second has almost no conceivable connection with lifting something. It's basically a fancy form of shaft coupling.

Why do I believe that it will be a lifting style endgame? Because it appears as if the GDC uses the FTC endgame to test out FRC endgames (probbably in order to promote collablration between FTC and FRC teams). Take last year for example: we saw ramps being balanced. Saw that in the 2011 FTC endgame. The lifting the crates for bonus points was a huge crowd pleaser in 2012 FTC, and the GDC has done similar things for FRC the past. I'm guessing a return of the 2007 style lifting of other robots.

That's a really interesting theory. In terms of actual collaboration, so far I don't think we've seen any great implementations of FRC-FTC collaboration - the minibots were "supposed" to promote this, but we all know that the best minibots were super-minimalistic and didn't draw much on FTC.

I was just watching some Rack 'n Roll videos the other day...man, lifting robots is so cool, I'd be excited to have that borught back!

[Bill_B]

Originally Posted by dcarr

That's a really interesting theory. In terms of actual collaboration, so far I don't think we've seen any great implementations of FRC-FTC collaboration - the minibots were "supposed" to promote this, but we all know that the best minibots were super-minimalistic and didn't draw much on FTC.

Minimalistic because GDC/FIRST wimped out on requiring that they be constructed by an FTC team. I guess they didn't want to field all the whining about how few FTC teams there were and how "unfair" such a requirement would have been. Instead a whole bunch of innocent motors got smoked and corners got trimmed to make the races to the top of those poles ultimately less than suspenseful.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

Because it appears as if the GDC uses the FTC endgame to test out FRC endgames (probbably in order to promote collablration between FTC and FRC teams). Take last year for example: we saw ramps being balanced. Saw that in the 2011 FTC endgame. The lifting the crates for bonus points was a huge crowd pleaser in 2012 FTC, and the GDC has done similar things for FRC the past. I'm guessing a return of the 2007 style lifting of other robots.

How do you know that last year's balancing act wasn't based partly on the 2001 FRC game? (And the FTC endgame the previous year wasn't also based on that?) Lifting the crates for bonus points--1999's main object was to lift game pieces for points (other than getting multipliers for lifted game objects, which occupied most of the game).

I wouldn't say that the GDC uses FTC to test anything--as far as I know, we're talking about two completely separate GDCs. Now, it might be that the FRC GDC looks at past FTC games and says "Why don't we do that but put a twist on it?" and the FTC GDC looks at past years' FRC games and says the same thing. But all that does is make things confusing for anybody insisting that there's a connection, because they can't show any connection.

I'd also like to point out that the very first FTC game--back when it was FVC--was an exact copy of the previous years' FRC game, played at about 1/3 scale. Just to confuse you even further, a year or so later, elements of the 2004 game appeared in another FVC game...And then the scale of the large ball on the field appeared in the 2008 FRC game.