[FRC Blog] When is a Game Hint not a Game Hint?

[mastachyra]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Not true - someone figured out the hint the same day it was posted. The image is gone, but Greg managed to correctly predict the game piece and the method of scoring fairly quickly.

Pedantic points about old game hints aside, I think this announcement is pretty big. Obviously, something is different enough about this game that we need to know about it two months in advance. That's unprecedented in FRC. In the era of ample COTS parts and a relatively stable set of rules, the main reason I can see FRC wanting to tell teams in advance is to avoid having them stocking up on parts they would need any other year, but not this year. Or possibly to prepare to drive and play on a drastically different field surface. To me this advance notice, combined with the several comments about how this is a game specific hint, implies that the hint will reveal that the game will be drastically different from anything in years' past.

Maybe the field shape is different. This might need to be revealed for off-season competition planning. A triangular or circular field might not fit in some high school gyms.

In any case, I am very interested to see this thing.