THE 2005 HINT!!!!!!!!!

[dubious elise]

ah, in the "four is not enough" part, i inferred that it would be like playoffs all the way along, you have 3 teams participate in each alliance, but only 2 would be on the field at a time.

just my $.02

[Elgin Clock]

<---Begin Transmission--->

After consulting with my fellow dectectives at Mystery Inc., I have a few leads as to what this clue may mean.

We are investigating this matter further as of now, but.. Fred, our fearless leader, seems to think that it is the work of none other than Red Herring and the clue is fake.

If any of you spot this person, be wary of the information they give you, and call me.

~~~~File Photo~~~~

~~~Red Herring~~~

That is all..

<---End Transmission--->

[roboticsguy1988]

Wow, this sure sounds interesting, i am not giving out any of the hundreds of ideas i have. I will dream about it tonight and see what else i come up with . After reading through all, yes i said all, the posts in this thread, i have to say there are some pretty good ideas out there. I can't wait until the kickoff.

[Alexander McGee]

I still don't understand why there is all this discussion in this thread. Something that some team's mentor told them isn't very viable. This is just like everything that happens, every single year. Just like the time that kid claimed to have "accidentally" found the game layout image on FIRST's website.

Why is this so difficult to understand? IT'S NOT REAL.

FIRST makes the decision to tell students hints. They do it in the form of an email blast, like they did last year. The "stairway to heaven" hint, rememeber?

If someone who "knows people at FIRST" decided to tell your team a "hint" ahead of time, then shame on them. If you are just making stuff up, then shame on you. If the hint is real, then shame on you for posting it. Think about what this could do the person that "knows people at FIRST"

I still don't think it's real. This thread has been driving me crazy.

[Andy Baker]

"Four is not enough"

People - you have already forgotten: Five is something that we have previously discussed. And Dave said that it would be easy to have a 1-on-1-on-1-on-1-on-1 game.

Andy B.

[ShadowKnight]

Originally Posted by magnasmific

I still don't understand why there is all this discussion in this thread. Something that some team's mentor told them isn't very viable. This is just like everything that happens, every single year. Just like the time that kid claimed to have "accidentally" found the game layout image on FIRST's website.

Why is this so difficult to understand? IT'S NOT REAL.

FIRST makes the decision to tell students hints. They do it in the form of an email blast, like they did last year. The "stairway to heaven" hint, rememeber?

If someone who "knows people at FIRST" decided to tell your team a "hint" ahead of time, then shame on them. If you are just making stuff up, then shame on you. If the hint is real, then shame on you for posting it. Think about what this could do the person that "knows people at FIRST"

I still don't think it's real. This thread has been driving me crazy.

While I agree that if people actually believed that this was an official FIRST 2005 hint, he shouldn't be posting it and the mentor shouldn't have told etc, I don't however believe it is such and doubt many people here take this thread as seriously as you might think. This is all just adding to the hype and excitement involved with waiting for the kickoff. Nothing involved in this will probably get anywhere close to the actual answer and no harm is done. Like dave lavery said, this is like shaking the box and trying to figure out what it is...this is far from official so feel free to sit back and enjoy the "calm before the storm" or join in the speculation.

[Alexander McGee]

Useless posting does not make sense to me. I can see two threads, almost identical, with over 20 pages of the "hype" that you speak of. What is the point of this? Shouldn't it be classified as "useless posting" which is looked down upon by many people on CD? Why isn't this in the "chit-chat" section?

I understand that people are excited, but this type of discussion is not productive. Speculation is never going to help you in the real competition. If you really have nothing better to do that speculate, why not talk about it over AIM or something like that? Why fill the portal with this garbage?

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by magnasmific

Useless posting does not make sense to me. I can see two threads, almost identical, with over 20 pages of the "hype" that you speak of. What is the point of this? Shouldn't it be classified as "useless posting" which is looked down upon by many people on CD? Why isn't this in the "chit-chat" section?

I understand that people are excited, but this type of discussion is not productive. Speculation is never going to help you in the real competition. If you really have nothing better to do that speculate, why not talk about it over AIM or something like that? Why fill the portal with this garbage?

Did you look at the forum that you are posting in? If people on chiefdelphi didn't like speculation, why would there be a forum devoted to rumors?

Did you realize that you can hid the rumor mill from the portal? Go to user cp->Recent Posts Config. While you're at it, you should probably add the curmudgeon forum.

[ShadowKnight]

Well, the rumour mill forum by definition of what it is meant to be used to discuss, rumours, will as a result be used to discuss such. Because rumours are rarely ever based off fact, this particular forum will inherently produce mostly non-productive conversations. The kid who posted this thread did exactly what the forum called for, "hear a juicy rumour? Let the world know!" For that reason I think i should stay in this forum. However, it would have been nice if this had been posted under the pre-existing thread meant to discuss this topic. I would agree with you on that.

[Alexander McGee]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

Did you realize that you can hid the rumor mill from the portal? Go to user cp->Recent Posts Config. While you're at it, you should probably add the curmudgeon forum.

Excellent suggestion. I just wish it was set up this way as default. My students were the ones who were confused and misled. It is frustrating to constantly be explaining to them the difference between a fact and speculation as pertaining to something like this.

I had one of them email me, concerned about how we were going to afford being able to build a hexagonal field.

I don't mean to step on anyone's shoes, it's just frustrating to me.

-axe

[Gary Dillard]

Originally Posted by magnasmific

What is the point of this? Shouldn't it be classified as "useless posting" which is looked down upon by many people on CD? Why isn't this in the "chit-chat" section?

It's in the RUMOR MILL section, hence it is a RUMOR. Personally I find it entertaining to see what gets started in this particular forum section and have people go off the deep end. I doubt that any useless post would get a couple thousand views and a hundred replies (so far) in 3 days as this one has. It doesn't matter to me if the teacher actually said it or not, or if he made it up or not; anything here is hearsay so you can take it for what it's worth - usually nothing.

Originally Posted by magnasmific

I understand that people are excited, but this type of discussion is not productive. Speculation is never going to help you in the real competition.

I disagree. What are we trying to do in the competition / build season? Get kids to think, think out of the box, think through all possibilities. Look through all the posts - noone is off starting or changing their robot design based on this rumor, but they're thinking through "what could that mean?" How would we do it differently if there were 3 on 3, or 5 at a time, or no center structure? If I started a rumor that I heard the robot had to carry a cup of coffee for the whole match, I doubt anyone would take it seriously but they would start thinking "how would we do that?" Same thing with the FIRST is selling old motors threads, etc. - we may think we know the reason but until the game is announced it's all speculation.

It's also useful for teaching students that they need to read the rules, not rely on what what they've heard or remember. They change every year and relying on rumors is as bad as relying on "it was that way last year".

I'm very impressed with how well this rumor did; my attempt last week didn't generate much attention even after I recruited Arefin to help me. Nice job Aaron! And yes, it should have been a separate thread because it's a separate rumor.

[Steve W]

Ok guys let's get this back on topic. I personally guessed that 4 was not enough 2 months ago and when questions were asked there did not seem to be any resounding NO's forth coming. Does it make it true? I will know in a few weeks.

On another note - Why does kick off take so long to get here but ship date comes toooooooooo fast?

[Alexander McGee]

Originally Posted by Gary Dillard

It's in the RUMOR MILL section, hence it is a RUMOR. Personally I find it entertaining to see what gets started in this particular forum section and have people go off the deep end. I doubt that any useless post would get a couple thousand views and a hundred replies (so far) in 3 days as this one has. It doesn't matter to me if the teacher actually said it or not, or if he made it up or not; anything here is hearsay so you can take it for what it's worth - usually nothing.



I disagree. What are we trying to do in the competition / build season? Get kids to think, think out of the box, think through all possibilities. Look through all the posts - noone is off starting or changing their robot design based on this rumor, but they're thinking through "what could that mean?" How would we do it differently if there were 3 on 3, or 5 at a time, or no center structure? If I started a rumor that I heard the robot had to carry a cup of coffee for the whole match, I doubt anyone would take it seriously but they would start thinking "how would we do that?" Same thing with the FIRST is selling old motors threads, etc. - we may think we know the reason but until the game is announced it's all speculation.

It's also useful for teaching students that they need to read the rules, not rely on what what they've heard or remember. They change every year and relying on rumors is as bad as relying on "it was that way last year".

I'm very impressed with how well this rumor did; my attempt last week didn't generate much attention even after I recruited Arefin to help me. Nice job Aaron! And yes, it should have been a separate thread because it's a separate rumor.

Listen,

I understand that I am in the rumor mill, and i understand that it is a rumor. I don't like the fact that things in the rumor mill show up, by default, in the portal. I have already written Brandon about getting this changed.

On another note, we can agree to disagree about ways to motivate your students. I have mine, and you yours. That's what makes FIRST such a wonderful program; different ideas create different things. My team is composed of 95% unexperienced FIRST students, from many different schools. My team wasn't just something centered at a single high school. I figure, if we petition ourselves to multiple high schools, we get the best and most excited ones from many different schools. And, it has worked.

Good luck to you and everyone else in the upcoming season. Weather it be on a hexagonal field, or with 15 robots. It doesn't really matter to me.

-Alex

[Heretic121]

i was just randomly thinking on the whole four thing.... if "Four is not enough" then the whole "four post" delimea that was going on may contribute to the game this year... either in robot numbers or the amount of humans in drive team, either way... the not breaking four posts per day could also be a sign that there will STILL only be 4 robots w/ 4 people.

Another thing popping into mind would be the 1v1v1v1v1 thing - i just read Mr. Baker's long arse post on dave's 5 comments... which also implies that he was almost purposly going to post more than 4 times a day to conceal the 5's... also i belive Mr. John V-Nuen one day posts "AH HA! This is my 5th post of the day!" which also may have something to do with the magical number "5"!!! but i dont think first would go back to the free-for-all games like in pre-2001...

[ttedrow]

Originally Posted by dlavery

I always mean what I say. I just don't always say what I mean.

And who is to say what is the mean? Do I mean the mean? Or even the average? Or am I just being mean (or average, which could be my mean)?

This must be Section I of the 2005 rules