When will the first official game hint be released?

[Whippet]

Originally Posted by itsjustmrb

So here is the honesty check.
Did last year's hint actually help any teams :-)

No, but we did have someone arbitrarily guess the game a couple of hours before kickoff.

Originally Posted by Garrett from 4301

Watch this, it's probably going to be something ridiculously hard to use, like frisbees.

[AdamHeard]

Probably in 3013... but Who knows?

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by MikeE

How do we know a hint hasn't been released already?

Has anyone checked the Nth letter of each of Frank's blog posts where N is the next Fibonacci number modulo number of years since FIRST was founded?

You know when a game hint has been released, when something sent out from FIRST (or posted on the blog) clearly says GAME HINT on it.

For some reason this year has been the worst so far in threads begging for game hints and overanalyzing. There's a whole lot of passionate, engaged students out there. My usual message still stands: spend your time on other, non-FIRST endeavors while you still have time. Hang out with your family & friends. Go do something that doesn't have anything to do with robots for a little bit. Maybe you'll gain a new perspective on something that will actually help you during build. Most importantly, get some sleep.

[Kimmeh]

Originally Posted by Libby K

Most importantly, get some sleep.

Quoted, bolded, and enlarged for truth.

Or, go study for finals. If you don't have finals, get ahead on some of that studying you might not do during build season.

[xXTHEGUARDIANxX]

sleep who needs sleep not me

im busy trying to figure this years game out and preparing for season sleep is non existent in my eyes

[connor.worley]

Originally Posted by xXTHEGUARDIANxX

sleep who needs sleep not me

im busy trying to figure this years game out and preparing for season sleep is non existent in my eyes

You play a dangerous game.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Libby K

Most importantly, get some sleep.

Sleep? What is this sleep of which you sp....ZZzzzzzzzz

[BBray_T1296]

Originally Posted by connor.worley

You play a dangerous game.

The most dangerous game. Oh wait, nevermind. (*)

Sleep and spend time with the people you will entirely ignore for the next 2 months

[Richard Wallace]

In olden times, former GDC member Dave Lavery used to post hints right here on CD, from which we could learn the exact nature of the FRC game -- IF we could decode them. Unfortunately, Dave's code was exceedingly complex. Something akin to translating all the technical facts into Kurdish, all the historical facts into Navajo, all the numerals into Chinese, and then scrambling the characters, re-encoding in EBCDIC, and then posting the final text in pig-latin. That explanation is actually a bit oversimplified. No one ever really understood any of Dave's hints.

[indubitably]

Originally Posted by Libby K

For some reason this year has been the worst so far in threads begging for game hints and overanalyzing. There's a whole lot of passionate, engaged students out there. My usual message still stands: spend your time on other, non-FIRST endeavors while you still have time. Hang out with your family & friends. Go do something that doesn't have anything to do with robots for a little bit. Maybe you'll gain a new perspective on something that will actually help you during build. Most importantly, get some sleep.

Idk, 2010 was probably the worst. The hints for the 2009 game were released very early in December and were pretty good. However, for the 2010 game, there was a red herring in November that made everyone crave an official hint that wasn't released until December 24th; it was pandemonium.

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by indubitably

Idk, 2010 was probably the worst. The hints for the 2009 game were released very early in December and were pretty good. However, for the 2010 game, there was a red herring in November that made everyone crave an official hint that wasn't released until December 24th; it was pandemonium.

I believe that one of the hints for 2009 was a fish. Don't know about you, but I wouldn't have guessed low friction playing surface (or moon rocks) from that. I believe someone got moon out of that, but that wheat was pretty effectively hidden in the chaff.

2010 was the only year where someone actually used the hint to figure out what the game was going to be IIRC. Someone looked at the thickness of the polycarbonate sheet and estimated that soccer balls could fit nicely in it.

[BrendanB]

Why catch up on sleep now? If you can't get the sleep you need during build season you are clearly doing something wrong.

[indubitably]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

I believe that one of the hints for 2009 was a fish. Don't know about you, but I wouldn't have guessed low friction playing surface (or moon rocks) from that. I believe someone got moon out of that, but that wheat was pretty effectively hidden in the chaff.

2010 was the only year where someone actually used the hint to figure out what the game was going to be IIRC. Someone looked at the thickness of the polycarbonate sheet and estimated that soccer balls could fit nicely in it.

Yeah, I was just saying the amount of posts begging for the game hint in 2010 was the worst.

[1094Jacob]

Originally Posted by Libby K

My usual message still stands: spend your time on other, non-FIRST endeavors while you still have time. Hang out with your family & friends. Go do something that doesn't have anything to do with robots for a little bit. Maybe you'll gain a new perspective on something that will actually help you during build. Most importantly, get some sleep.

A good non-FIRST endeavor would to be to study for your Amateur Radio License. The off-season is the only time I have to study for my Extra ticket.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

2010 was the only year where someone actually used the hint to figure out what the game was going to be IIRC. Someone looked at the thickness of the polycarbonate sheet and estimated that soccer balls could fit nicely in it.

Fun bit of hint trivia: The 2007 game hint was used to determine the game piece of that year. Here's the post (the pictures are gone, but essentially he rendered a picture of a tube on a spider leg from the game hint)

Of course, the challenge's rules don't change if you figure out the game early, so it is of no help to you to do so. Not to mention that you won't know if you're right until the exact same time you'd figure out the game the regular way.