2006 Official Game Hint Discussion

[Madison]

I'm not one to care about the hint so much -- I have enough things to worry about, I guess. That said, y'all are amateurs

For your consideration: "Just Shoot Me," and "8 Simple Rules".

[Ted Boucher]

Well, these are my 2 top ideas so far...

1. One of the definitions of "shovel" is "The amount that a shovel can hold; a shovelful: One shovel of dirt" ... so could the game piece have to be filled?

2. "a game piece obsessed with a shovel's show and seeing Montana's green heights" ... the "and" can make the heights relate to the game piece.. so the game piece might have to be up high to score points... kind of like in 1999 with raising the floppies to a certain height

[Rickertsen2]

Maybie "5 'bots" means exactly what it sounds like which is that there will be 5 robots on the field. This could mean a number of different things:
5v0 - This would be cool
ueven teams - could be interesting
2v2+1 - The 5th team either switches sides or somehow influences the game in a special way. I think this is highly unlikely

Well when pasta is uncooked, it is straight. Remmeber the batons (straight things)? Shovel: thing that picks up logs(straight things)? The game peice will be some sort of log-like thing.

Montana + heights - montana has mountians. I don't think the field will be flat this year

[Kristian Calhoun]

Originally Posted by Rickertsen2

Well when pasta is uncooked, it is straight. Remmeber the batons (straight things)? Shovel: thing that picks up logs(straight things)? The game peice will be some sort of log-like thing.

Montana + heights - montana has mountians. I don't think the field will be flat this year

Maybe some sort of "king of the hill" type game with (green?) foam noodle where the bot standing in a particular area at the end of the round or on whatever is supposed to represent the "hill" in this situation scores bonus points?

The heights reference might mean that the field won' just be flat, maybe raised, multi-leveled, or maybe with some sort of mound on it? Or maybe you will have to score into a goal that is placed up high, or stack/unstack the noodles.

the 5 bots part is confusing, because you could divide the bots into diff. coalitions, or put them into a number of different situations where the total number of bots is 5. or this part of the clue might have been purposely made to mislead us.

well, that's just my two 2 cents. ;-)

[viking1902]

i believe that the " 5 'bots" part has nothing to do with the actual number of robots on the field. a " 'bot" might be a goal of some kind that "tangles" with "pasta." i believe that "pasta" might suggest the use of fun noodles or another pasta-shaped object.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by ViKiNg_1083

i believe that "pasta" might suggest the use of fun noodles or another pasta-shaped object.

What about rope? Perhaps some net to go under?

[Quantumman]

ok this may be completely off, but if anyone has heard of the idea of entanglement(the idea in quantum mechanics that to things can be so closely related that by changing a property on one thing you effect the other as well). If we apply this to the hint then perhaps the 'bots' are not the robots, but some sort of field element that releases the 'pasta' game piece.

[Travis Hoffman]

I've found the key to unlocking the mystery of "shovel's show"! Turns out they're talking about a TV show....

http://www.overstock.com/cgi-bin/d2....cid=80488&fp=F


What....it wasn't obvious to you guys????

[Francis-134]

Originally Posted by T. Hoffman

I've found the key to unlocking the mystery of "shovel's show"! Turns out they're talking about a TV show....

http://www.overstock.com/cgi-bin/d2....cid=80488&fp=F


What....it wasn't obvious to you guys????

Looks like Lavery's animation robots are looking more and more realistic every day .

[Billfred]

After a bit of mediation, what goes well with pasta?

Meatballs.

All of a sudden, I'm getting scary visions of us having to retrieve balls from a big area littered with ropes or noodles or something.

[Bill Moore]

A good description of "shovel logging" is here. In particular, look at the description of the serpentine path the logger takes on very steep slopes (near the bottom).

http://web.cocc.edu/logging/szlinks/shovellog.htm

[CmptrGk]

five 'bots tangling with pasta

i dont really want to say this, but could the bots be driven by tethers again?

[21:14] <Friend1> montana's green heights
[21:14] <Friend2> the shovel has me stumped
[21:14] <Friend1> probably evergreen aka xmas tree
[21:15] <CmptrGk> so, something could get stacked on a tall object
[21:15] <Friend1> star on a tree
[21:15] <Friend1> but the game piece i dont see
[21:15] <Friend1> unless its an ornament

maybe there will be tall scoring structure(perhaps green), with something that needs to be placed on the top. and then smaller objects would need to be hung on it in the middle.

[EricH]

Bringing Dave's hints in as well:
"five 'bots tangling with pasta" Analysis: There will be five robots at a time. I don't know how, but possibly there are six with one off by itself.They will be tangling up in something-- this could go with the English Channel hint. Although "pasta" suggests spaghetti of some form, it may be sauce, because you almost never see it without sauce.

"a game piece obsessed with a shovel's show" Analysis: First, you have to figure out what a shovel's show is. Personally, I think it might be the shovel's handle, which would put batons into the game. I am most likely wrong on this.

"and seeing Montana's green heights" Analysis: First, seeing, particularly seeing green. I think there will be a return of the cmucam. Montana has mountains, so there will likely be a ramp to go over, possibly green. Green: possibly three alliances with green being the third. Green heights: possibly forested hills, so there may be a "forest" of batons (or something) on said ramp. Worse yet, a game piece that can see.

OK, enough speculating. I'll leave for now before my brain is totally fried. We'll see what they've got for us in two weeks!

[iwearshoes]

Originally Posted by T. Hoffman

I've found the key to unlocking the mystery of "shovel's show"! Turns out they're talking about a TV show....

http://www.overstock.com/cgi-bin/d2....cid=80488&fp=F


What....it wasn't obvious to you guys????

Close, It actually refers to another TV show "Just Shoot Me" in which case the game is most likely going to involve projectiles.

[looneylin]

i was thinking that

five 'bots tangling with pasta
mebbe 5 robots get to hold batons or get the option to get batons (i really have no idea lol)

a game piece obsessed with a shovel's show
means that u have to stack batons as high as u can

and seeing Montana's green heights
n mebbe after u stacked the batons as high as u can, u need to use ur camera (like last yr for the vision tetra) to reach some goal. dave said last yr at kick off we'll use camera's more, so mebbe this yr the camera obstacle will be a bigger part of the game