2013 Game Hint!

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by CLandrum3081

I definitely wasn't expecting a hint this early.
I'll have to wait for the next one to actually formulate some good guesses.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm going to wait for the first 2013 game hint before I start thinking about it.

[spaztazticii]

Let's look at the photo really quickly...I see 3 push pins and 1 tack. Let's imagine 2 bots start at each pin, Blue for Blue and Red for Red, and then 1 Red and 1 Blue at Yellow. That means the fourth pin could be a dispensing area? Everyone is so obsessed over Rick Astley. Maybe we should be thinking about the pins the simple things that hold that picture there.

[PwnyBoy]

In the frame of Never Gonna Give You Up that we are given as the hint, Rick is in the middle of saying "never gonna run around and desert you."
do with that what you will

PwnyBoy

[Kailey1023bx]

FIRST has been in existence for 22 years and Rick Astley's song "Never Gonna Give You Up" was released in 1987. If you add the 22 years to 1987 you get 2009, which was Lunacy. 20 years after 2007 was Rack N' Roll and people say you have been "Rick Roll'd." The lyrics "Never gonna let you down" can be related to the 2005 game Triple Play, which had tetrahedrons that go along with the repetitive 3s. Also in 2005 on the game field there was the blue and red alliances and yellow triangle markings on the field like the picture on the cork board with the yellow, blue, and red pushpins.

[akoscielski3]

I find this ironic. In English class our teacher's tell us how there is symbolism and such, and we don't understand it or think its there. Then FIRSTer's get a Game Hit, and we think EVERYTHING is a symbol and has some significance.

[swwrobotics]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm going to wait for the first 2013 game hint before I start thinking about it.

Yes, I totally agree, and that this is really being over thought. Usually the GDC doesn't announce official hints until late November/early December, so this might be a distraction from what the game really is.

[rondinol]

Do you think it could be a game where you post pieces of the FIRST logo on a corkboard or magnetic board? Or is that to similar to logomotion?

[Christopher149]

Originally Posted by SuperNerd256

A reoccurrence of the number 3 can mean anything, and even then, it could just be a big troll. 3 could relate to the field, a game element, a rule, etc.

Yes, what does the number three signify? Tell us, Data.

[Walter Deitzler]

Originally Posted by Christopher149

Yes, what does the number three signify? Tell us, Data.

Star Trek Game?

[LSpaw]

Hi.
Luke from Team 3335 here, figure I'll put in my two cents.
Let's break this hint down, shall we?
First we should list every element in the image. We have:
4x Push Pin:
-1x Red
-1x Orange
-1x Yellow
-1x Blue
1x Rick @ 3:00 of the original video
1x Cork Board
1x Metal Border for Cork Board
1x White Background Wall

Now we should figure out what each of these items could mean individually.
Push Pins:
-In recent years, we have seen the act of pinning another robot to a wall or some other form of restricting movement, often by pushing them, as a disqualifying offense. On the other side of the end that is pushed, is (we can assume) a pointy part. Ergo, I draw the conclusion that pushing and pinning another robot will make for a painfully-given red card; nobody wants to be disqualified, and nobody wants to do the disqualifying!

Color scheme of push pins:
-Red, Orange, Yellow, and Blue. The first three are your basic "warm" colors, whilst the only "cool" color present is Blue. At first glance, this would suggest there will be some form of quadruple-team arrangement. However, I find this to be unlikely, as rearranging the field in such a manner as to support four teams would be impractical and costly. Not to mention 6/2 equalling 1. Eight robots on that size of field would be preposterous, let alone 12. Instead, I find the objective to be to obtain objects of various colors (red, yellow, orange, blue), with Blue and Red objects being obtained during autonomous mode.

Cork Board
-Clearly representative of the field, the cork board is what the push pins are pushed into. This is a very obvious sign that the floor will be either made of a cork-type material, or perhaps some of that squishy floor rather than carpet. In other words, expect a floor with a little bit of give to it.

Metal Border for Cork Board
-Obviously the metal border is the metal barrier around the outside of the field. It's sturdy, rigid, and only received one dent from my team's robot that it couldn't easily have buffed out of it. (We're sorry for that, Lone Star Regional. We were rookies and didn't know we needed to cycle the power after a round.)

White Background Wall
-I assume that the space not contained within the field will be some sort of white color to aid in photographic purposes when taking pictures from the stands, as well as making the lines of tape on the floor that guides robots on and off the field easily visible.

Last but not least, Rick.
-There are numerous factors to Rick's image. His microphone might suggest the use of ultrasonic sensors to detect distance would be useful this time around; perhaps to guide robots during an autonomous period for some purpose. The idea of a 3-alliance match is unlikely because it would probably require significant modifications to the field, which is, again, impractical and costly. Finally, the lyrics of the song suggest the game may involve attempting to attain and hold on to as many objects as possible, perhaps the opposite of Lunacy, where robots tried to score into other robots.

All of these together tell me we will be having a squish-floored metal-bound field with a white flooring around it. On the field will be Red and Blue alliances of 3 teams each, who compete for orange and yellow objects during the teleoperated period and attempt to obtain Red or Blue objects, respectively, during the Autonomous period.

I am sure I am not the first to draw these conclusions, and I know it is possible that I am completely wrong; my guesses as to last year's game involved a trapeze and water balloons.

[JesseK]

The GDC has probably been trying to figure out how to sneak a RickRoll into a game hint for several years now. I'm not an expert, so I can't tell if the RickRoll was edited into a photo taken from a phone or if the RickRoll was printed, tacked up, then taken as a photo from a phone (as implied).
fotoforensics

The RickRoll ELA is a darker image than the surrounding image. However, given that we don't have enough comparative surface of solid colors, nothing's conclusive -- the white paper obscures the ELA of the RickRoll photo edge. The fact that all pushpins are totally obscured in the ELA is interesting, but I don't know enough about it to draw a hypothesis as to why. Assuming the bottom left pin is flat, all of the shadows line up. Given the GDC's history of adding fluff to hints, I'm going to presume the flat pin simply means the person who tacked up the photo only had 3 non-flat pushpins (i.e. don't look into it too much). The jpeg quality (90%) implies that the photo was saved twice (once when taken, once after -- probably a crop), but that's subject to the default jpeg quality of a HTC Evo 4g.

So -- nothing conclusive, but the GDC should beware that the internet provides many resources to figure out their schemes

FYI, the guy who made Fotoforensics also writes a blog I read weekly (you know, while code compiles...).
http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/

Some very interesting articles about photo manipulation there.

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by JesseK

The GDC has probably been trying to figure out how to sneak a RickRoll into a game hint for several years now. I'm not an expert, so I can't tell if the RickRoll was edited into a photo taken from a phone or if the RickRoll was printed, tacked up, then taken as a photo from a phone (as implied).
fotoforensics

The RickRoll ELA is a darker image than the surrounding image. However, given that we don't have enough comparative surface of solid colors, nothing's conclusive -- the white paper obscures the ELA of the RickRoll photo edge. The fact that all pushpins are totally obscured in the ELA is interesting, but I don't know enough about it to draw a hypothesis as to why. Assuming the bottom left pin is flat, all of the shadows line up. Given the GDC's history of adding fluff to hints, I'm going to presume the flat pin simply means the person who tacked up the photo only had 3 non-flat pushpins (i.e. don't look into it too much). The jpeg quality (90%) implies that the photo was saved twice (once when taken, once after -- probably a crop), but that's subject to the default jpeg quality of a HTC Evo 4g.

So -- nothing conclusive, but the GDC should beware that the internet provides many resources to figure out their schemes

FYI, the guy who made Fotoforensics also writes a blog I read weekly (you know, while code compiles...).
http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/

Some very interesting articles about photo manipulation there.

wow.

[Team371All]

Wow, I cant believe all this attention for an obvious joke. Very funny GDC, looking forward to the real clue in december

[rsisk]

Originally Posted by Team371All

Wow, I cant believe all this attention for an obvious joke. Very funny GDC, looking forward to the real clue in december

Are you kidding? We live for this kind of abuse.

[Racer26]

I'm gonna laugh when the GDC numbers the first official game hint #3.