Game Hint #2

[ChrisH]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

What set of numbers?

I think somebody looked up last year's clue by mistake. Sometimes we forget the Inernet is persistent as well as ephemeral.

[synth3tk]

Originally Posted by Gary_Pierson

Four different locations:
Paramount refers to the west,
Phoenix refers to the south,
Minnetonka, the north,
and Dover, Delaware is east.

Compasses involved in the game?
Those have been previewed in the last couple of years.

Four different tasks, one that can be completed in each location?

Or am I taking it too literally?

Wow, that's pretty good! It would line up with how the GDC uses hints.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by ChrisH

Zamboni seemed to take up their entire block. They are BTW at the corner of Colorado and Madison. A coincidence? There was also a lumber yard in this area, the main entrance was on Paramount but they had a back gate onto Colorado.

Considering who figured out the 2006 clue, or part of it, I'm not so sure that's a coincidence.

I was thinking someone should drive out there and investigate.

[CrazyCarl461]

Originally Posted by jerry w

The delay from when the camera captures an image until it is displayed on the driver station varies between two and five seconds. Most drivers would find this to be infuriatingly slow.

However, with the processing power on the robot, the pattern matching, color detection, or pixel counting happens in a few hundred milliseconds. The robot reaction time with imaging processing is actually faster than the driver can react with full visibility of the field.

Though it might be fun to have the camera image at the driver station, it is unlikely to provide the driver any edge during the game.

jerry

It also states on page 2-5 of the FRC Programming Guide:

"You can send image data to the host computer or perform live front panel debugging only during development, not during the FRC competition."

So that pretty much makes official what you were saying is already fairly unreasonable. Only the image processing VIs.. as it should be!

[Arthur S]

does anyone see something... like in the map...

We tried searching everything in google maps and no luck with any kind of image that would've showed up. We also tried zoming out at every stage and could'nt see anything.

[ChrisH]

Originally Posted by jerry w

The delay from when the camera captures an image until it is displayed on the driver station varies between two and five seconds. Most drivers would find this to be infuriatingly slow.

However, with the processing power on the robot, the pattern matching, color detection, or pixel counting happens in a few hundred milliseconds. The robot reaction time with imaging processing is actually faster than the driver can react with full visibility of the field.

Though it might be fun to have the camera image at the driver station, it is unlikely to provide the driver any edge during the game.

jerry

We tried using the camera to drive during our initial shakedown of the Beta system. We found that the delay increased dramatically as the robot got further away from the control station and after a certain range was exceeded we lost the signal entirely. That range was not much more than the length of the field. We decided that driving by video is not going to happen just yet, even in practice.

We have just started playing with the camera again to see how it performs for tracking objects etc. We were quite impressed with the ability of the color sensing VI to accurately track and determine image size in a wide variety of lighting conditions. You can see the pictures on the FIRST forum here: http://forums.usfirst.org/showpost.p...34&postcount=1

You can almost play in the dark. The whole setup seems to be much less sensitive to lighting variations. We are thinking that it will add a whole new dimension to the game.

[Zach Purser]

Originally Posted by Arthur S

We tried searching everything in google maps and no luck with any kind of image that would've showed up. We also tried zoming out at every stage and could'nt see anything.

Did anyone notice that the aerial view of the Phoenix location looks like a circle-triangle-square?

link

[GreyIOutcast]

Originally Posted by Zflash

Thursday, December 11, 2008
Take your machine out of the shop on Colorado in Paramount;
stop by and get connected on Central in Phoenix;
drive by and make a pickup on Minnetonka in Minnetonka;
then head to the field on Evergreen in Dover.
Posted by Bill at 7:02 AM 0 comments

So we've got some notice of teamwork for "Central in Phoenix", obviously.
We've got a pickup on Minnetonka in Minnetonka, which seems to be a lake with a lot of ice fishing, and we had an arctic fish for the first game hint.
There's a football field on Evergreen in Dover...

Now the only one that isn't all that obvious is the first one.

What sort of shape do all the points make on the map? Is it a loop? I heard some of them make a triangle, but is that all 4 of them, and one of them is just inbetween a line?

And no, I haven't read every single post yet.

EDIT: Oh, and also. I think I have some more thought on the thing. With the additional processing power, there must be a reason behind the upgrade, so I'm going to take a wild guess that maybe "getting connected" doesn't mean teamwork, but instead swapping to tele-operated mode. Which could mean it's autonomous for the first portion, just like last year.

[Engineer]

MAZE!

[Zach Purser]

Continuing to chum the waters with random trivia, there is a type of battery called a Zamboni pile. Certainly a battery could "get connected".

[EricH]

Originally Posted by GreyIOutcast

So we've got some notice of teamwork for "Central in Phoenix", obviously.
We've got a pickup on Minnetonka in Minnetonka, which seems to be a lake with a lot of ice fishing, and we had an arctic fish for the first game hint.
There's a football field on Evergreen in Dover...

Now the only one that isn't all that obvious is the first one.

See ChrisH's post on that. He lives in the area. Note the Zamboni company being on the street.

[DJW]

If this game does turn out to be capture the flag, then YAY!!!

[Robert Cawthon]

I think some of my brain's magic smoke leaked out trying to think about this. It seems to me that we need to think more outside the box than we have previously. My head hurts thinking about it.

[xnaut]

Originally Posted by jerry w

The delay from when the camera captures an image until it is displayed on the driver station varies between two and five seconds. Most drivers would find this to be infuriatingly slow.

However, with the processing power on the robot, the pattern matching, color detection, or pixel counting happens in a few hundred milliseconds. The robot reaction time with imaging processing is actually faster than the driver can react with full visibility of the field.

Though it might be fun to have the camera image at the driver station, it is unlikely to provide the driver any edge during the game.

jerry

This is what i meant.... just said smarter... and with more actual data

During autonomous.. when your not sending picture data... the camera was very responsive and we got our camera to follow a green light easily (we were only held back by our servos ability's)

[Zach Purser]

And just when I was feeling good about the Zamboni clue I found the Paramount ME™ Robotic Telescope System in Golden Colorado. link

Iridium Satellite Transits Moon then Flares!

This interesting video was captured the morning of June 9, 2007 with a Paramount ME from Golden Colorado. The satellite Iridium 66 transits the Moon moments before flaring. (Copyright 2007 Software Bisque, Inc.)