**FIRST EMAIL**/FRC Game Hint #2

[ergodezign]

Hey team! Try adding or subtracting Macnetic declination of 15.2 degrees from the heading and see what you aim at. We dont know if the heading. Adding the 15.2 might aim pretty close to Manchester. Subtracting is only a few degrees off of true north.

[TheIrishOne]

Originally Posted by Kyle O'Don

Mostly, we just ran out of ideas.

Ran out of ideas??? Well Kristine Atiyeh and myself were just talking about the recent hint, and she came up with some thing brilliant. Here it is:

They first built the hancock building and they loved it so much that they told the architect, "hey, that was beautiful, build us another one that is taller" and so he says "ok". So he builds the tower and it's boring, BUT HE PUTS MIRRORS ON IT SO IT REFLECTS THE BEAUTIFUL BUILDING HE MADE. It's totally a clue. We have to make beautiful robots this year. Two of them, but with mirrors.


Thoughts on this?? It's very, very interestinggg.....

[iwannabeaseal]

its the towers at copley sqaure 342.2 is bearing of the directions southwest

[Pat McCarthy]

After reading all 19 pages, I have come to my conclusions.

42.349905
-71.076072
Refers to geographical coordinates on Earth, which when inputed into Google Earth, point directly to the statue of John Singleton Copley in Copley Square.
Those seem to be a rock solid, chosen, point. Whatever the clue is supposed to reference, I think, has something to do with John Singleton Copley.
Whoa, idea, a single ringer was called a Singleton last year!

342.242026
I have no clue what this might be, could be a compass bearing, could not, I don't care to speculate.

[Starke]

Is it just me or does the attached picture of Copley Square look like the standard playing field!? Maybe objects in the square are elements of the playing field?

[B-Fuzzled]

On wikipedia it said that the square is served by the green line and orange line subways.

Maybe our bot has to follow a green or orange line during autonomous.

[Big Kid]

Oh i know, maybe the 342 is the number of steps you have to walk in the square straight ahead to find some buried FIRST treasure! (It may be something, no sleep, awake for 30 hours) Okay, no i'm with the compass bearing on this one.

[EricVicenti]

Originally Posted by thattallguy

Oh i know, maybe the 342 is the number of steps you have to walk in the square straight ahead to find some buried FIRST treasure! (It may be something, no sleep, awake for 30 hours) Okay, no i'm with the compass bearing on this one.

Unfortunately there is no 'straight ahead'.

I do like the playing field idea, what are all those circular things in the southwest side?

[B-Fuzzled]

On wikipedia it said that the square is served by the green line and orange line subways.

Maybe our bot has to follow a green or orange line during autonomous.

EDIT: I looked at the 3rd number as a compass bearing (w00t boy scouts FTW), and it seems that the streets run perpendicular and parallel to that bearing.

[Big Kid]

okay if the third number is a bearing, my question is from the exact point at which the first two numbers meet (what I'll call the origin) and if we take that bearing and follow it, does it intersect with anything that we could call a useful piece to the puzzle of what the game maybe?

[Tetraman]

I think the fact the clue is specific and there are specific things around the location is what the clue is.

The fact there are specific/different places around the area that all are different and represent differet things. This game probably is about being specific with specific objects in specific places.

[tseres]

i'll bet dave is just laughing at all of us, thinking "now christmas is ruined, they'll be thinking about the hint too much."

i think we're over-analyzing too much. i mean, the square makes sense. the fact that it may point to a light post with 4 lights (i think i read that above somewhere) may just simply mean that there is 4 areas on the field, or 4 IR signals on the field that the robot must pick up on to do some kind of task. i also like the post on rings or shapes that are off-balance that we have to move. ...

....i'm thinking too much...

[Big Kid]

Originally Posted by Tetraman

I think the fact the clue is specific and there are specific things around the location is what the clue is.

The fact there are specific/different places around the area that all are different and represent differet things. This game probably is about being specific with specific objects in specific places.

like the tortise and the hare statues, I think they could possiblly make game piece out of those, you know the alliances have to push their piece (tortise or hare) into the other alliance's team's goal zone to get some points.

[JoeXIII'007]

Originally Posted by tseres

i'll bet dave is just laughing at all of us, thinking "now christmas is ruined, they'll be thinking about the hint too much."

i think we're over-analyzing too much. i mean, the square makes sense. the fact that it may point to a light post with 4 lights (i think i read that above somewhere) may just simply mean that there is 4 areas on the field, or 4 IR signals on the field that the robot must pick up on to do some kind of task. i also like the post on rings or shapes that are off-balance that we have to move. ...

....i'm thinking too much...

It is either that, or we are hammering the wrong nail.

Personally I feel people are focusing on the easiest possible solution to the hint, and in years past, that has failed miserably... just miserably.

Then again, I could be wrong: the fact that the large building by the coordinated spot is highly reflective seems real juicy as far as game containing content. I figure there could be some IR reflectors to turn 1 IR beacon into many IR sources (A beacon in the center has # of mirrors surrounding it such that the reflectors are positioned directly above or next to some key game object).

Then there are the obelisks... suppose we have 2 beacons like in 2004, which send beams to the corners of the fields... nah... too complex. The obelisks seem like a scoring objective more than anything.

The tortoise and the hare: end of game challenge... something of that nature. 2004 (again) had the 50 point chin-up, which required more torque, lower gear ratios, and more time.

I'm just throwing more cents into the jar... I'll keep reading.

[JesseK]

The six-decimal place precision is useful when producing maps, as it allows the proper
relative placement of features that are next to each other on the ground without overlap.

http://www.census.gov/geo/mod/positional_accuracy.pdf

The numbers are most definitely coordinates. Google Earth quite clearly shows the statue if you use the first two numbers. I not been able to find evidence to support that six sig figs represents another standard. However, the third number is probably the azimuth which is a relative bearing. Believe it or not it is very possible to measure a relative bearing with that great an accuracy.

So the object (though it's fuzzy) that is at the coordinates of the first two numbers doesn't look like it points at the north pole. We need a fairly accurate picture and a volunteer:

1.) Go to the statue at the coordinates
2.) Using the middle of the two feet as a center point, measure the relative bearing using the third number. This is relative to the statue, NOT relative to you facing the same way that the statue does while standing in front of it. I recommend using a protractor and yard sticks.
3.) Pointing the same direction of the angle, take a picture. Try to keep the very center of the picture dead on with the angle.

In the end, this hint tells us nothing. To win the competition, you need a good strategy. To play to the strategy, you have to have a great robot. To have a great robot and a good strategy, you need every detail of the game, not a simple hint.

It's fun to conjecture though

Referring to Dave's sig... my laptop mouse is in one hand...but coffee is in the other...and I've never denied the coffee's existence to myself.