2006 Official Game Hint Discussion

[Nuttyman54]

Originally Posted by Safarley2901

Who knows, There are lots of interpretations of the clue this year. But it's 10:17 Pm on christmas eve, and im going to bed. Goodnight all.

you knocked the nail squarely on the head: the hint is meant to start speculation and discussion, but is always too vague for someone to be entirely sure that they've gotten the game correct. of course, after the kickoff, everything will be painfully obvious

[Kevyn H.]

well......heres what i think......

ive put together the first and last lines of the hint:

five 'bots tangling with pasta
and seeing Montana's green heights

Joe Montana-i would consider his greatest heights winning a Super Bowl or getting to one.......so.......i believe the game pieces are bowl shaped

four corners of a field, each with a bowl, and the fifth is a "Super Bowl" in the middle of the field, which is raised up, and probably colored green or something so you can get bonus points in autonomous mode

you have to fill the bowls with the "pasta", whatever that may be, probably little PVC pipes or something

i guess you could use a shovel to scoop up these little pieces, that would add in the third line

the question is........what will the human player be doing? maybe the robots push the little tubes into a bin (like the 2004 game) and the human player drops it into the bowls?

[Steve W]

Originally Posted by Kevyn H.

Joe Montana-i would consider his greatest heights winning a Super Bowl or getting to one.......so.......i believe the game pieces are bowl shaped

four corners of a field, each with a bowl, and the fifth is a "Super Bowl" in the middle of the field, which is raised up, and probably colored green or something so you can get bonus points in autonomous mode

you have to fill the bowls with the "pasta", whatever that may be, probably little PVC pipes or something

Sounds like an over sized VEX field.

[artdutra04]

There are a lot of interesting ideas in this thread, but I am still sticking with my original "prophecy" (for a lack of a better word).

I seem to have found more evidence to support my reasoning. In the post that started it all, Dave posts about the infamous Tammy Trimble and includes a picture of a baton. A month later, when pressed for a clue, Dave replies that "you already have it". Most people (including myself for a while) took the baton hint too literally. IMHO, I believe that this would be too obvious to be a genuine, bona fide clue. So let's look deeper into the baton-myth.

The cheerleader aspect, and hence baton, are not directly referring to a baton as being the actual game piece. However, lets look into where we might find a cheerleader with batons. The obvious answer, is at sporting games. And more precisely, at football games. The baton part was not referring to an actual game piece, but to where batons are used. The reason for this is most people (including myself) would automatically jump to believe the face value clue, and not dig deeper since they were convinced they had already found the real clue.

I can almost guarantee it, but the Montana in the game hint has multiple meanings - alluding to both the state and the football player. The wording in the game clue is chosen very carefully, so almost everything will have deeper meaning(s). Try to overlook the "face value" of the hint by thinking about how each word is used, where it is used, or what is the actual process it does, etc.

Then, as I posted before, IFI recently built a football toting Vex robot. Of everything in the world, why footballs? Where they doing preliminary, perhaps of mechanisms that could be used to pick up footballs? Somehow, I've always felt there was some hidden reason behind the football robot, even weeks ago before the clue was released. And somehow, every time I try to think deeper into each clue, everything keeps coming back to football.

Also, everyone should try to remember this:

In FIRST, every team is equal before the law. (i.e. the start of the match.)

Purposely being biased towards one alliance (i.e. uneven numbers on each side) is something that FIRST will probably never do. By having uneven alliances, you will form a major rift in the FIRST community. A small number of teams will continue to make elaborate and sophisticated robots, while the bulk majority will argue that since there is 2x2x1 or 1x1x1x1x1 alliances, all they'll need is a defensive armored-tank robot to gang up on the offensive robots.

All the defensive teams will gang up on the stronger robots/alliance, and FIRST will turn into destructive BattleBots. The quality of most robots will suffer, and the level of engineering that goes into them will plummet. This is a very thing, that potentially might lead to there actually being negative growth in the number of FIRST teams, since many teams might not want to put six weeks of hard work into an elaborate, well-thought-out machine only to have a defensive 'bot attempt to "destroy" it.

FIRST is about building engineered robots, not about building bully robots. Offensive robots look the problem in the eye, confront it, and beat it. Playing strictly defense skirts the problem, and just tries to bring everyone else down. And how does that famous quote by Dave go? "Engineers find solutions, while lawyers find loopholes. Which would you rather be known as?"

There have already been hints about Joe Montana's fourth quarter deficit comebacks. Can you say forth quarter multiplier? Like hanging on the bar in 2004, this will be a way for teams to dramatically increase their points by doing a near impossible goal in the last thirty seconds.

Petey has some really good ideas in his post, especially in the last half of his post. Remember, FIRST always looks to find multiple ways to score. There may be pit in the center of the top of the ramp, as well as a goal of some sorts over the pit. Scoring the footballs into the goal over the pit may be worth double the points as scoring in the pit under the goal.

Petey's idea about autonomous mode at the end of the match, where robots try to get onto the green ramp is a really good idea. And I really doubt that there will be 2x2 this year, or any year in the foreseeable. The way the hint is, it implies that five 'bots are trying to accomplish a difficult goal near the end of the match. In order to have five robots, you will need a 3x3 game. The five refers to the fact that only five of the robots will be able to score at the end of the match. One of the robots will "draw the short stick", and won't be able to score.

Finally, I'll end this post by going back to Dave's Tammy Trimble post. Did anyone else notice that Trimble is a major GPS navigation company? Will we see GPS navigation in autonomous this year?

[sanddrag]

Maybe he threw out the baton hint that seemed too obvious to make you all think that it is too obvious so that couldn't possibly be it and you look way deeper than it was ever intended to be and we will actually be manipulating batons just like he said. (how was that for a run on sentence? )

[skimoose]

Sanddrag, Dave never "said" baton, just a picture. He said "majorette". What sporting events are big enough to have marching bands and majorettes? Football.

[Petey]

Art Dutra, I like this about you post:

The cheerleader connection. You're right--a baton is almost too obvious, and no one puts any weight to his "majorette" reply because the baton seems like a logical game piece.

I think this is one more piece of evidence in the "football" cart.

Only thing is:

I'm worried about goals with this model. The 2003 game used balls, it's true, but those balls were hefty and it was difficult to huck them very far. If you have people imitating Montana and throwing bullet passes to suspended goals, you're going to run a risk of balls flying everywhere. That's the one part that doesn't add up.

Autonomous GPS? I like it, but seriously--this can't be feasible. It would seem to make a CMU unnecessary, and (to the best of my knowledge) GPS kits aren't precise enough for what FIRST needs (e.g. a matter of inches.)

--Petey

[Ted Boucher]

Originally Posted by tfedullo

would flash red, blue, then to our great surprise green.
could this mean a new green alliance?

The green is actually a type of code fault error that the controller sends out to alert the field. I have not seen a 2005 competition where I have NOT seen this on at least one robot on the field that was showing this fault.

Originally Posted by tfedullo

i no longer think so since green is not a first color, however i still think it is to obvious for the CMU cam

And as we have seen in 2001 , green IS a FIRST color.

[Alex Burman]

Originally Posted by Petey

Art Dutra, I like this about you post:

The cheerleader connection. You're right--a baton is almost too obvious, and no one puts any weight to his "majorette" reply because the baton seems like a logical game piece.

I think this is one more piece of evidence in the "football" cart.

Autonomous GPS? I like it, but seriously--this can't be feasible. It would seem to make a CMU unnecessary, and (to the best of my knowledge) GPS kits aren't precise enough for what FIRST needs (e.g. a matter of inches.)

--Petey

aren't they trying the gps kits with the DARPA challenge and aren't the ending up sometimes miles off course?

i found it ironic that i went wondering through the Internet looking for clues and i came across this http://www.filefarmer.com/techshows/

a bunch of tech TV shows. look at the 5th one down, its news pod casts hosted by Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht. Anyone remember them (tss, tech TV) they get their stuff from dugg.com and their show is called diggnation sense a digging theme. However thats where the relations to the clues end.


Maybe FIRST got us Cheerleaders for the holidays!

I'm signing of for now. Merry Christmas and though you still have a while to go... Happy Hanukah

[Pat McCarthy]

GPS would not be to feasable at all because most recievers barely work indoors.

[KTorak]

Originally Posted by Nuttyman54

you knocked the nail squarely on the head: the hint is meant to start speculation and discussion, but is always too vague for someone to be entirely sure that they've gotten the game correct. of course, after the kickoff, everything will be painfully obvious

Yep. I think everyone worries too much about the clue. Odds are even if anyone is remotely close, it's not like someone is gonna confirm their speculation which will lead into alot more speculation. Even if you guess it right, you don't get a any special price besides saying "I guess it." Personally, I'd rather spend these two weeks with family for the holidays and relaxing (getting away from all the stress) before the hectic 6 weeks following kick off

[Zoheb N]

i agree what is the point of worrying during ur break... i know im excited to know what the game is, but u won't know if u were right or not till kickoff and if u spend all this time trying to come up with a strategy that is wrong than u wasted ur time.... so just relax and enjoy your breaks... but still be anticipating kick off

[NiGhtMarE_AnGeL]

artdutra, i bow down to you because you make sence (not saying these other people dont)
but it makes sence...jut flat out to me. i honesly thing that you are on to something.

and like a prior post mentioned..pasta comes in many shapes...not just long noodles...so "pasta" is versitle

also, i found this:
http://www.davefurlong.com/POETRY/song_of_panama.htm

a song of panama...where the first line says:
"Chuff! chuff! chuff!" An' a mountain-bluff

"Is moved to the shovel's song;

"Chuff! chuff! chuff!" Oh, the grade is rough,

A liftin' the landscape along!"

i thought it mighty interesting. i hold true to the "mound" in the middle idea..
but i am brain dead just from READING all these posts!

lets see how close (or far) our guesses were on the 7th!

Merry christmas to you all, and happy new years too!

* I AM A LEGO HEAD *

[Jeff K.]

Originally Posted by NiGhtMarE_AnGeL

"Chuff! chuff! chuff!" Oh, the grade is rough,

A liftin' the landscape along!"

Could the game involve having to lift a part of the field that is painted green autonomously to some height?

My two cents...it's late..and too much eggnog.

Merry Christmas

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Petey

Autonomous GPS? I like it, but seriously--this can't be feasible. It would seem to make a CMU unnecessary, and (to the best of my knowledge) GPS kits aren't precise enough for what FIRST needs (e.g. a matter of inches.)

--Petey

GPS is way too inaccurate--using commercial GPS (ie: a 3 satellite fix, the max allowed by the government), you would have a margin of error larger than the field itself.

Even with military GPS (5+ satellites), you'd still only be able to tell your position to about a meter or so.

Not to mention GPS is extremely cost prohibitive.