2006 Official Game Hint Discussion

[EricH]

Time for some assimilation, broken into categories as follows:

Robots/alliances: Highly divided. Many figure 1v1v1v1v1 (going off the "five 'bots), but that is highly unlikely. 3v2 is also unlikely. 5v0? Possible, but unlikely, so the discussion has switched more to 6 robots on two alliances, but "how does 5=6?" is the hot item. There is some talk of a placebo bot, but who knows (other than the GDC, that is.)

Playing field: The general consensus is that there will be a ramp/elevated surface in the field, probably in the middle. It will have some form of green on it, and will be where material other than carpet is placed (if there is any).

Scoring objects: General consensus: pool noodles, footballs, or batons of some form. However, as people have pointed out, pool noodles won't wear very well. I personally suspect that the only pool noodles on the field will be used as bumpers on robots. Footballs are (possibly) supported by at least two portions of the hint. Batons are (possibly)supported mainly by one portion and one of Dave's hints.

Miscellaneous: CMUcam will be back, much to the delight of a few and annoyance of many. There has been talk of moveable goals, holes (likely location: ramp--maybe '03 style with the copper grate?) and bars for hanging.

Some of us have made predictions further up, I'm just putting the general consensus together. Maybe between Art, skimoose, and some of the other intelligent folks on CD (most of us), we can force a redesign of the game....

[Pat McCarthy]

A thought just popped into my brain, but I do not have the knowledge in this area to get any farther.

I noticed the odd structure of the hint. Then I though of poetry. Then I thought that maybe the type of poetic structure could be part of the clue.
Does anybody know if this has any merit?
What got me thinking about this was the word " 'bot ", which may have been shortened to fit the poetic structure.
For example, Haiku format or Iambic Pentameter...?

[Joe J.]

This was posted back on page 7 of this thread:

Originally Posted by Mme.Miscellania

It's interesting that the clue is in the form of an extended haiku (8-10-8).
Now, haiku are normally 5-7-5 patterns, so maybe this year's competition has an alternating number of robots on the field - maybe one robot out of six is chosen to sit out a round, and get put in the next round.

[John Gutmann]

Just a guess even though I am jumping into the thread a little late. Green Foam noodles that you have to shovel up and load onto somehting and the human player can throw them too or laod the robot with them. Kinda like a big game of ring toss without the throwing. and there may be different levels of the goals you hneed to get like having the about the field like 2005 or having a medal stand sort of thing in the middle.

Or instead of foam pool noodles they can be like the tubular pasta that you have to load into somekinda thing that goes into the middle of it.