[FRC Blog] 2014 Game Hint

[Neima]

Originally Posted by Dukenator76

Moon=Lunacy=Regoliath=Hockey

or it could be a second lunacy challenge

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by Neima

or it could be a second lunacy challenge

How about no.

I'm betting on a time-travelling moon game played underwater at this point.

[RWS98]

I have not read all 40+ pages for this thread so I don’t know if anyone has proposed the following:

Looking at the Nov. 25 photo, if it indeed had games clues I would speculate that the game has something to do with billiards. First there is the green screen like the felt on the tables. There are tall chairs like you would find in a billiard hall/tournament. The water bottles (and the plotted hint numbers) form a triangle that would represent the rack. And finally, all three are reading their “Cues” from the teleprompter.

If I were to guess a name for this game it would be “Rack’em Up”

[Mr. N]

Happy Boxing Day!


(Apologies if I'm duplicating ideas from earlier posts...)

Let's assume the hint is not an alphanumeric cipher, but rather refers to three "things". Personally, I do not believe these are coordinates (in physical space or colour space), since the inclusion of the "/" is an odd way to represent a coordinate.

I think each "thing" is a geometric object (game piece or field element), and the "Large Number/Small Number" defines the shape somehow. The relative magnitude of the numbers suggests (at least to me) "Volume/Area".

I had a look at the volume and area formulas for various solids (source: Engineering Toolbox/Volume and Surfaces of Common Solids). At first, I tried to match up Volume to Surface Area without much luck. However, when I instead looked at Cross-Sectional Area (or some representative planar area), things started jumping out.

Now, since absolute values are given for both Volume and Area, they are expressed in terms of some "unit" which is not explicitly defined. I think mm are too small, so the most likely "unit" is either inch or cm.

Here is a summary of the solids corresponding to each number group (all dimensions expressed in rounded "units")

• 8234/57 = tall cylinder (8.6 dia x 146) OR toroid (8.5 minor dia. x 46 major dia.)
  
• 61126/1963 = sphere (49 dia) -- minus a little bit, suggesting a cut-out or cavity
  
• 62326/15806 = shallow square pyramid (126 x 126 x 12 tall) OR shallow square platform (126 x 126 x 4 tall)

I drew these shapes to scale and put some of them into an assembly (based on pure speculation). Please see attachment.

[Skidzoo]

I really like Mr. N's interpretation of the hint, although it could be complete chance and we are overthinking it (but we all know that doesn't happen, right? ).

It's a pretty solid explanation- I just can't tell if that blue sphere is a game piece or a field structure, which leads me to a few ideas about how the blue sphere will affect all of this.

If the blue sphere is a game piece, it could mean one of three things: either we have to put the ball on the peg, take the ball off the peg (I feel like the second is more likely than the first, since it will take a ridiculous amount of accuracy on behalf of the programming/driver to get it perfectly onto the peg), or that the other team has to try to knock it off its pedestal... kind of like tee-ball, except that you are trying to hit the other team's ball.

If the blue sphere is a field structure, it is either an endgame field structure with a purpose (like the tower in Ultimate Ascent), or it is a standard field piece that is in play the entire time, like something we have to drive around. I really don't know what the its purpose could be. A few random guesses: We have to lasso it? Throw/stack something on it (like Logomotion)? Fill it up with some other mini game pieces?

Just my interpretation of Mr. N's work.

[Anthony4004]

Originally Posted by Skidzoo

team has to try to knock it off its pedestal... kind of like tee-ball, except that you are trying to hit the other team's ball.
.

oh this sounds like a great idea with Mr. N's idea. this greatly supports the baseball idea.

[Anthony4004]

So has anyone seen the AndyMark Ri3D website? On the bottom of the page they have up a simple arm joint, which is a new item they sell. So....arm joint......game where we need an arm? After all the hints, my money is on a baseball game where we have to move the "ball" onto tee-ball peg (check out Mr. N's pic above) somewhat like Logomotion. Interesting.....

[gavmac928]

The Mr. N theory, as it has now been dubbed, revolving around the sets of numbers each being ratios between the volume and an area of grometric shapes, sounds pretty legitimate. However, keep in mind that his drawing is just one speculation, and that the bottom square could also be a pyramid. That is just one orientation he came up with. But I still like the general theory more than anything else we've come up with, because it is an actual interpretation of the numbers mathematically, not just typing the numbers into google or a coordinate grid, which is where most of our theories have been coming from.

[Skidzoo]

Originally Posted by gavmac928

...keep in mind that his drawing is just one speculation, and that the bottom square could also be a pyramid.

I actually factored the pyramid base in when I was originally coming up with my theory (with the same explanation as below), but now that I think about it, the pyramid base could also be applied to another scenario.

In both cases, a pyramid base would prevent a robot that runs into the base from having its parts jarred lose by running into an edge, and it wouldn't shake the pole as much as a flat piece of metal, although a flat base a few centimeters higher than the ground should not have much of an effect on the robot's functionality (but who knows). The other advantage of having a pyramid base is that it allows round objects to roll down its slopes, so a pyramid base could mean that there are a lot of small, round objects (or one big one). Either way, the slope helps round objects roll off the base.

Now, for the two possibilities:

1) The tee-ball version. For the sake of saving space, refer back to my earlier post if you forget or haven't seen it.

2) A fill-the-basket scenario: If there are a lot of small game pieces, that probably means that there is a bucket or some sort of container (the sphere with a hole in the top) that needs to be filled with those aforementioned game pieces (probably a small-diameter ball, like a tennis ball or a golf ball). The sloped sides would make any pieces that don't make it into the bucket go back out onto the field, where you pick them up again.

I personally like the tee-ball idea more, though.

Also, it's late and I have been thinking about this for a long time, so there are probably some gaps in my logic, and I think that explanation might not be as clear as I thought it was... if you see any problems or are confused, just tell me and I will be happy to explain again or rethink my theory.

[Munchskull]

I know I am a little late to the party but did any one else notice that the numbers all form a repeating decimal?
8234/57 144.456140350877192982


62326/15806= 3.94318613184866506389978489181323548019739339491332 40541566493736555738327217512337087182082753384790 58585347336454510945210679488801720865494116158420 85284069340756674680501075540933822599013033025433 37972921675313172213083639124383145640895862330760 47070732633177274452739466025559913956725294192078 95735796532962166265974946222953308870049348348728 33101353916234341389345818043780842717955206883461 97646463368341136277363026698722004302163735290396 05213210173351891686701252688852334556497532582563 58344932304188282930532709097810957864102239655826 90117676831582


61126/1963= 31.13907284768211920529801324503311258278145695364238 4105960264900662251655629

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Munchskull

I know I am a little late to the party but did any one else notice that the numbers all form a repeating decimal?

All rational numbers are either repeating decimals or end after a finite number of decimal digits. Not particularly noteworthy.

[smarthimandrew]

Originally Posted by Mr. N

• 8234/57 = tall cylinder (8.6 dia x 146) OR toroid (8.5 minor dia. x 46 major dia.)
  
• 61126/1963 = sphere (49 dia) -- minus a little bit, suggesting a cut-out or cavity
  
• 62326/15806 = shallow square pyramid (126 x 126 x 12 tall) OR shallow square platform (126 x 126 x 4 tall)

I am currently in the middle of checking the math on this one. I don't like how much rounding is involved here. Would you please post your work for how you got those dimensions for the objects.

[Mr. N]

Originally Posted by smarthimandrew

I am currently in the middle of checking the math on this one. I don't like how much rounding is involved here. Would you please post your work for how you got those dimensions for the objects.

Please see my update in Post #668. I've attached the spreadsheet on which my calculations were based, so you can see the numbers without round-off. You can also use the spreadsheet to check the formulas.

[JohnSchneider]

Originally Posted by Mr. N

Happy Boxing Day!


(Apologies if I'm duplicating ideas from earlier posts...)

Let's assume the hint is not an alphanumeric cipher, but rather refers to three "things". Personally, I do not believe these are coordinates (in physical space or colour space), since the inclusion of the "/" is an odd way to represent a coordinate.

I think each "thing" is a geometric object (game piece or field element), and the "Large Number/Small Number" defines the shape somehow. The relative magnitude of the numbers suggests (at least to me) "Volume/Area".

I had a look at the volume and area formulas for various solids (source: Engineering Toolbox/Volume and Surfaces of Common Solids). At first, I tried to match up Volume to Surface Area without much luck. However, when I instead looked at Cross-Sectional Area (or some representative planar area), things started jumping out.

Now, since absolute values are given for both Volume and Area, they are expressed in terms of some "unit" which is not explicitly defined. I think mm are too small, so the most likely "unit" is either inch or cm.

Here is a summary of the solids corresponding to each number group (all dimensions expressed in rounded "units")

• 8234/57 = tall cylinder (8.6 dia x 146) OR toroid (8.5 minor dia. x 46 major dia.)
  
• 61126/1963 = sphere (49 dia) -- minus a little bit, suggesting a cut-out or cavity
  
• 62326/15806 = shallow square pyramid (126 x 126 x 12 tall) OR shallow square platform (126 x 126 x 4 tall)

I drew these shapes to scale and put some of them into an assembly (based on pure speculation). Please see attachment.

given the geometric nature of most first games this actually seems pretty neat...

[TK3950]

62326 is a palindrome.