2006 Official Game Hint Discussion

[Nuttyman54]

Originally Posted by KillerCows456

Im sorry if im a little slow but can someone link Dave's animation i want to take a look at it.
Thank you in advance.

all we have right now is a picture of what would APPEAR to be Dave's animation...here

[KillerCows456]

Originally Posted by Nuttyman54

all we have right now is a picture of what would APPEAR to be Dave's animation...here

Thank you alot. Now time to spend countless minutes staring at it.

[bobl]

The Shovel Show was an art exhibit at the Highwire Gallery. Maybe some sort of highwire traversing going on either by bots or game pieces?

[Simon Strauss]

Originally Posted by Dr.Bot

1. There is a "house" or official bot, that has to be overcome - to be overcome it must be neutral, or able to be utilized fairly by the other robots in some manner. I like this better than:

i like this idea, i know this is a stretch but what are the chances of the traditional center piece of the field (or maybe moving) was a FIRST robot (the fifth bot) and scoring was to be done by placing or removing something from it. This might also explain the banana in Dave's picture and the "freshly picked for me" (or something like that) line in the Terry Hall song that Bill Moore gave the link to, maybe a banana shaped or noodle shaped has to be picked from it. the Green heights line would infer that this could be done in autonomous for extra points. this idea would also make sense of the Tangling with pasta line being how tangling sounds a lot like dangling and the tangle aspect might mean that the house bot is trying to protect the objects. bobl also mentioned that shovel's show appeared at the highwire gallery which also supports this hypothesis of mine.


idea #2
maybe 5 bots tangling with pasta means a flag football or tag type game, which would explain the possible Joe Montana reference.

[ahecht]

Originally Posted by Katy

I don't think FIRST will ever have a house robot. I may have to eat my words there but seriously it is a good deal more work than normal to reset, expensive, requires maintenance, and is a safety hazard if it gets beat up too badly and is not fixed. FIRST is often short volunteers to do everything already; where are they going to get a full pit crew to take care of a robot that runs every single match? You would probably need at least two of them unless you want to wait between every single match for the motors to cool. That isn't even counting the cost of teams making a mock house robot.

FIRST had house bots long before Robot Wars did. IIRC, the 1993-1998 games used a placebo bot during the finals.

[Andrew Blair]

Looking at the "Big Boss" size pool toys, I'm having second thoughts about discounting the pool toys as possible game objects. That big foam tube wouldn't be that easy to break, and with the price(about two bucks apiece, so for FIRST, maybe like $1. I'd imagine they get at least bulk discounts.) You could afford to chuck one or two every match.Thats like 250 bucks, in a worst case scenario, per regional. Not too bad, considering how many tetras kicked the bucket during play. And they were much more expensive per piece. Now, the problem comes in two parts:

1. Thats alot of stuff to fit into Mike Wade's trailer. It's big...But so are like 500 pool noodles!

2. What happens when the toys get chipped up? The things can probably get beat around awhile before they are completely destroyed, but in the meantime, they'd get chipped up and become less handleable. A tetra was eother broken, or not. Simple as that. A ball was either useable, or not. A bin was either broken, or not. Pool toys are a bit more destructible.

So, I still have my money on footballs, but there might be new light shed on the pool toys.

[John Gutmann]

Originally Posted by Henry_Mareck

#4. I think "oro y plata" means "gold and silver" in spanish.

Wasn't one of the 49ers colors gold and the shovel is pointing to the word that means gold. And Joe Montana played football for the 49ers. hmmm.....

[Katy]

Originally Posted by ahecht
FIRST had house bots long before Robot Wars did. IIRC, the 1993-1998 games used a placebo bot during the finals.

My apologies. Would somebody be so kind as to pass me the ketchup?

I read through FIRSTwiki but there is very little information about those robots. They don't appear to be designed to affect gameplay much...did they? If so how were the bots kept neutral...I am sure at some point it sat in a spot where somebody would have liked to be. How were they maintained? In short does anybody have any further information on previous house robots?

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by Katy

I read through FIRSTwiki but there is very little information about those robots. They don't appear to be designed to affect gameplay much...did they? If so how were the bots kept neutral...I am sure at some point it sat in a spot where somebody would have liked to be. How were they maintained? In short does anybody have any further information on previous house robots?

Here are two pictures of the vacuum placebo robot from 1997. If you want more information about placebo robots, please see this thread, where Andy Grady recently enlightened us about the history of placebo robots in FIRST.



I don't know if anyone else noticed it, but in the Montana state flag, there are three plateaus, with the highest at the left, and the lowest at the water. Does this mean anything about the game? Will we see the return of stairs?



Also, despite pool noodles being cheap, they will probably never be used. If you thought seeing PVC tetras fall apart was bad, the utter cataclysmic anhiliation of pool noodles would totally dwarf it.

Although it may not seem like it, to build a full-size tetra for the 2005 game cost anywhere from $10-15 each. While redeeming gift cards at D.ick's Sporting Goods today, I noted the cost of the generic footballs at $11.99. So the price of a football would not be that bad. Footballs would also be almost indestructible. It would be very hard to try to pop one, although not impossible.

Another thing that we need to consider when thinking about playing field objects is the "cool" factor. The GDC would not pick something that an audience would not deem to be "cool". Footballs would definitely satisfy. So would balls, including soccer balls, kickballs, and large balls, etc. Tetras could be considered cool looking.

Also, I like the "green" as refering to money (aka points). This can mean that something high[er] could be worth more points? Is this like the 2005 game, where the highest tetra owns the stack? Or does this mean that something up higher than the rest of the field will be worth more points (like a high goal, or a hanging bar)?

If only all this food for thought happening in this thread could somehow be funneled into solving world hunger...

[buss]

I just understood the banana reference.

The shovel show was at the highwire gallery. There will be a wire stretching across the field.

There will be some sort of object (football or pool noodle) hanging from the wire, which the robots will have to pick.

Terry in Terry Hall is similar to Tammy in Tammy Tremble (which is where the baton reference has come from), the song by terry hall mentions bananas and the line "freshly picked for me," this was pointed out above by nycpunk. This reinforces the idea that scoring objects will be hanging from a wire strung across the field.

Now, Lavery's frame from the animation...there's obviously water. In my opinion there are two possible interpretations of this: 1) there will be a trough filled with water under the wire that the scoring objects are hung from, or 2) there will be some sort of object to make getting directly under the wire impossible (or just really hard). This object may be green and could be a raised platform with no sides and a slippery surface. My guess is that each side of the field only has one access ramp at the edge of the field which is colored green for the camera during autonomous.

Now where to go from here...I'd hate to press my luck in sucessfully predicting the game. There will be a goal above the wire which will be the maximum scoring goal, however goals will only count if the objects hanging from the wire are used to score - and yes, half the objects will be colored for each alliance. There will be a goal for each alliance on the opposite alliance's side that accepts footballs. The alliances will start out with the maximum number of footballs, just like they did with tetras, and the robots will be loaded by human players or by autoloaders, just like last year.

I think i'm starting to stretch it, but I still think that there will be scoring objects hung from a wire stretching across the width of the field.

edit: There is a strong possibility that there will be 1 green scoring object directly under the high goal which can only be scored during autonomous.

[Jonathan Norris]

remember Lavery titled this as the 2007 hint, there is no way that they can implement water for this years game (look at multiple prior posts and threads). How do we even know if this picture even relates to this years game. Right now the only thing that I am confident about is the game piece being footballs. There is still a lot to find out about this game, don't look too much into Lavery's 2007 picture.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Norris

There is still a lot to find out about this game, don't look too much into Lavery's 2007 picture.

Or his comments about various elements in future games (stationary robots and parachutes come to mind). I mean, this is Dave we're dealing with. The 2007 picture should be let lie until after Championship 2006. I do not want to have to say this again, but there will be no water game in the forseeable future! And the banana "clue" did just what bananas do: it went bad. The forseeable future extends through approximately 2008, probably later. Now, back to the matter at hand...the 2006 hint.

[EddieMcD]

Originally Posted by dez250

bot Pronunciation Key (bt)
n. A software program that imitates the behavior of a human, as by querying search engines or participating in chatroom or IRC discussions.

Is it sad that I completely forgot about autonomous? I'm pretty sure they wouldn't leave it out this year though, so I'll go with your definition.

Originally Posted by Andrew Blair

So, look at the shovel: What's it pointing at(shovel's show)? ORO - What type of past sounds like ORO? ORZO! And by the way, orzo is a long, rice shaped object. Almost like a football. It also means barley in Italian, which is even more football shaped!

So five prime (5+1=six) robots autonomously going though a bunch of footballs all over the field? Perhaps that's also where the shovelling comes in, though I'll still go with my passing theory.

For the record, I still have my circular hill with possible field goal. But one thing I find interesting is that we don't know how much of the game this may or may not be telling us. For all we know, this clue is just about the game piece and number of robots. Or it tells us the entire game. Or, they're just messing with our heads and the "clue" has absolutely nothing to do with the game... I guess time will tell.

[663.keith]

I woud agree that we shouldn't look too much into the 2007 "hint", I belive that dave's picture is just trying to fool and confuze us (even more ) before kickoff, thereby creating the havoc and chaos he loves to see these few weeks we have left

On the pool noodles -- I like the idea of them being implemented in the game, it could be possible that FIRST could do something to make them more sturdy, they could possibly wrap them in duct tape. They would be practically indestructable

[Nuttyman54]

Originally Posted by 663.keith

On the pool noodles -- I like the idea of them being implemented in the game, it could be possible that FIRST could do something to make them more sturdy, they could possibly wrap them in duct tape. They would be practically indestructable

FIRST wrapping pool noodles in Duct Tape would be a sight to see...and hey, it fits the Silver part of Oro Y Plata....