2015 Game Hint!

[Flimsor]

At the Washington Girl's Generation event this past weekend, Blair Hundtermark made a surprise visit. He talked to the audience, and revealed that the 2015 game is in the bag, and media for it is currently being filmed. He also gave the following game hint:

"Think big, be big."

It's very uncommon for FIRST to put out a game hint this early, so it's legitimacy isn't completely certain. Seeing as it was at a PNW event, it could be region specific, but no one will know for sure until kickoff.

So, theories?

I think it would be awesome if this means the robots will have to join together to make one big robot, like in the Voltron anime, but of course that's almost impossible, and I'm kidding

Note: this isn't meant to be taken seriously, and is just a way to spark up conversation for the 2015 game as a way to pass the time.

Would they give a hint to only a select group of people? No.

Not a game hint.

[Joe G.]

Sounds like generic advice for being successful in any of FRC's prior 23 games, in any engineering challenge, and in life.

Not something meaningful details of the game can be derived from in the slightest (not that "official" game hints are any different).

[EricH]

Blair also revealed a game hint one year at Championship involving three colored lights.

It had no bearing on the next year's game.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by EricH

It had no bearing on the next year's game.

To be completely fair, this could probably be said for a majority of official game hints.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

To be completely fair, this could probably be said for a majority of official game hints.

If it's labeled as "Official XXXX Game Hint #Y", it usually does have some bearing. It just never shows as obvious until Kickoff that year.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by EricH

If it's labeled as "Official XXXX Game Hint #Y", it usually does have some bearing.

For a very loose definition of "bearing." IIRC, the game hint for Lunacy was a picture of a fish (admittedly it was a "moon fish," but still...).

[Joe G.]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

For a very loose definition of "bearing." IIRC, the game hint for Lunacy was a picture of a fish (admittedly it was a "moon fish," but still...).

The thing is, for a game hint to be of actual use, fully solving it without any further context must provide tangible insight into how the "solution" could actually manifest itself in the game, or at the very least, steer your pre-kickoff thoughts in a relevantly focused direction. With this in mind, lets look at some solutions to recent game hints:

2014: Assists. Gives us a part of the game name, and the nebulous idea that passing will be useful. Nothing to suggest how this will be put in practice, nothing to suggest big balls, launching, 2008 throwback, etc. As a designer, no benefit.

2013: Reference to a pyramid, disks, and using weight to calculate score. Quite a stretch to go from "pyramid" to "climb this weird pipe structure sequentially with very specific rules". Same with disks, there are a lot of disk objects that could have been used. And what on earth were we supposed to learn about gameplay by knowing that weight would be used for measuring something? As a designer, very marginal benefit requiring lucky guesses.

2012: High speed counters, rapid real time scoring. An element of several very different games before and after 2012. No information whatsoever to point to balls, shooting, or bridges. As a designer, no benefit.

2011: Locomotion + Logo = Logomotion, to a lesser extent, pillar --> minibot pole. No way to determine the minibot task, or even the very concept of minibots. No way to determine the name of the game will be implemented through inner tubes on pegs. As a designer, no benefit.

2010: If I recall, someone actually did reverse engineer the CAD drawing to estimate a gamepiece roughly the diameter of a soccer ball. Soccer-esque rules had to be pulled from thin air, as 2002 showed that soccer balls as a gamepiece didn't necessarily mean kicking mechanisms. And the extra gate nebulously suggested field obstruction, leading to thoughts about rough terrain drives. Absolutely nothing to suggest hanging. As a designer, very marginal benefit from the gate, potentially more benefit from the soccer ball.

2009: Moonfish. Without any more information, very hard to jump from this to a simulation of reduced gravity. Nothing to suggest mass ball game, or the funky design of the Moonrocks. As a designer, no benefit.

For the past 6 years, there has been very little to gain from the game hints even if they are fully solved, and absolutely nothing of value from four of the six when you consider what you can learn from them without the benefit of hindsight. This is why I, and most people who have been around for a while, just filter out the inevitable 500+ post thread each year, and don't expend effort searching for these unofficial "hints," much less trying to solve them.

[RunawayEngineer]

I think all the hysteria over game hints is inherited from a few hints that actually had the possibility to be revealing.
For instance, 2007's game hint:


actually shows a possible configuration of game piece on its scoring target. It is not obvious by any means, but it was observed as a possibility.
Hints like this spurred on the idea that if you looked hard enough, you would get something advantageous.
However, I have never heard of a team that actually used a game hint - official or otherwise - to even attempt to gain a head start.

[Derpancakes]

Guys, it's space. So many space-related events are happening in 2015, and 'think big'? (Insert Wheatley quote here)

[Whippet]

Originally Posted by Derpancakes

Guys, it's space. So many space-related events are happening in 2015, and 'think big'? (Insert Wheatley quote here)

SPAAAAAAAAAACE!

[Tungrus]

What could be bigger than 2' exercise ball? Can it be shot or pushed it into crescent shaped goal?

[therobo-titan]

"Think big, be big". So it would have to be something big that when you become part of it, you become as big as it is. When you put an extra drop of water into the ocean, it becomes indistinguishable from the rest of the water, and thus can be as big as the entire body. It can only mean one thing:

WATER GAME CONFIRMED!

[Chadfrom308]

Big, the ocean is ~72% of the world, which to me, is relatively big. Water game

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Tungrus

What could be bigger than 2' exercise ball?

How about a 3.5' exercise ball, from 2008? Same construction and everything, just bigger.