I believe that the above two posts by Dave should be looked into. Probably not an actual clue but could be fun to discuss and who knows maybe we can get him to drop another red herring or two 
Anyone remember what the game piece was from the very first FIRST game? Isn’t there some sort of anniversary thing going on this year?
The game piece from Maize craze from the first FIRST game way back in 1992 was tennis balls yes, but would they really do something that simple again where its very simple to pick up. Every one knows how to hoard a bunch of small game elements and hold them from both FTC 2009-2010 hot shot and from FRC 2009 the dreaded L word
Tennis balls are not necessarily easy. they could make the game difficult by limiting the way the robots can interact with them, shooting, pushing, lifting, dumping. Making rules restricting possession or #'s. The field could be full of dozens of them making it difficult to drive.
the clue could be in the PENN
note all were found using Wikipedia
John Penn (engineer) (1805–1875), British marine engine engineer, invented lignum vitae bearing for propellor shafts = WATER GAME jk lol
Penn Jillette, member of the comedy and magic duo Penn & Teller
could mean this years game ______ Illusion or ______ Magic
"The “Curse of Billy Penn”
Atop Philadelphia City Hall stands a statue of William Penn, sculpted by Alexander Milne Calder, which is 37 feet (11 m) tall.[111] From City Hall’s completion in 1881 until 1985, when One and Two Liberty Place were constructed along Sixteenth Street, an unwritten agreement had existed among the city’s planners that no building in Philadelphia should ever stand higher than the hat atop Penn’s statue, 548 feet above the intersection of Broad and Market Streets at Penn Square, the central square of Philadelphia’s five main squares.[citation needed]
The “Curse of Billy Penn” allegedly haunted the statue after the completion of Liberty Place. No Philadelphia major professional sports team captured a national championship for more than twenty years. So during the “topping off” ceremony of the Comcast Center on June 18, 2007, Bill Hankowsky of Liberty Property Trust placed a small statue of William Penn on the topping beam. “We don’t believe in the myth, but to be safe we’ve added the statue of Billy Penn to the top of the Comcast Center,” said Hankowsky at the time.[112] The following year the Philadelphia Phillies won the 2008 World Series, the first national championship for a Philadelphia professional sports team since 1983, when the Philadelphia 76ers captured the NBA championship."
could mean height restriction
I’ve been asking for a small game object that we have to mive in bulk like this for years. It’s one of the few items that would force teams to reconsider the way they design game object manipulation devices.
New challenge = good game shake up
Tennis balls aren’t easy. There is potential for a great many of them in last year’s robot dimensions, and they will easily jam when in large hoppers.
If tennis balls are indeed this year’s game piece, there may be some design concepts of interest from both the VRC and the FTC robots of 2009-2010.
Everyone seems to be assuming that it’s a regulation sized tennis ball. What if it was this? Or this? Or even this? Maybe they are mixed together and we have to sort them out!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH :eek:
Edit: Dave’s picture looks suspiciously like the 4" size…
That’s exactly the same picture. Dave’s picture isn’t of a normal tennis ball, but a 4 inch tennis ball. That has to be significant…
Note also that dave left out his signature in the first post, leaving 4 “sentences”. There’s that number 4 again.
A game piece that is economical and widely accessible across many different markets, geographic regions, and cultures?
Naw, that’s not the GDC’s style.
It may not necessarily be 4" game pieces, but as Chris pointed out, the number 4 is shaping up to be an important number.
The last time a number kept cropping up in the “hints” that Dave and others released, it was 3. At the time, only two teams on an alliance were on the field at the same time, no matter if the alliance was 2 or 3 teams. This was back in late 2004.
In 2005, there were 3-team alliances on the field for the first time, the game was Triple Play, and a single scoring object was worth 3 points (unless it met certain conditions), and there was a multiple of 3 places to score.
We’ll see what rabbit trails the rest of the red herrings lead us down.
Earth, wind, fire, water :eek:
Possibly 4 robots per alliance? o.O
Only 4 game pieces?
Four zones to the playing field?
Many things could be four…
In 2007, the number “5” was an important part of the game hint. 2007 was a first anniversary year, and the 5th season of FRC featured a game with inner tubes, the 2007 game piece.
If you use the same methodology as the previous hint, references are made to Hexagon Havoc, a 1v1[v1] game with 8 and 24 inch circumfrence balls. In the final rounds when the game went from 3 teams to 2 team matches, there were 4 of the 24 inch balls on the field.
Other instances of the number 4: goals in 2004 (widely regarded to be one of the best FIRST games), big balls in 2001, periods in 2006, balls in 2008.
You’re getting pretty far afield here with the numerology.
It’s actually a regulation tennis ball. The 4 is a reference to the 4" inside diameter of the 10’ tall pipe that serves as a goal.
I should mention that you have to climb the pipe to pull down the sleeve (80 lbs required for activation) that opens the cover so you can drop the tennis ball in.
It’s all very simple.
Heart!
It’s a Captain Planet-themed game!
I am not following this 4 fixation numerology thing i think we are straying off track. Until 4 comes up again lets table this for now and focus on the tennis ball or the Penn.
Tennis courts have a large net dividing the court in half. Maybe the field will have a net or wall. Tennis courts also have certain lines and serving restrictions. Perhaps there will be a tennis like scoring system.
30 - Love 
And so it begins :).
Number of spots are set for champs. I doubt the alliance will change from 3
The number of spots accommodates 4 regional winners at present; the fourth slot is just rarely used since it is for the backup team. I do not think FIRST has lowered pre-registration enough to accomodate for this though.
He could also be giving us a hint to what its not… not a sphere. If you look at the last 3 games they have all been spheres. This means that no current students will have worked with anything other then spheres (I know a ton of mentors have been around 4+ years).
Again with the not theory, they said they would not be celebrating the 20th anniversary of FIRST (I thought i read that somewhere) but would wait for the 25th anniversary celebration. Just the sort of thing to throw us in the complete opposite direction.