Team 250: FIRST Robotics Game Clue

5 is a number
Numbers are fun
Fun is subjective
Subjective is a clue
The Clue is indecipherable
Indecipherable is an adjective
Adjectives describe words
Words help explain things
Things are better explained with pictures
Pictures are an example of this years clue
This years clue is difficult
Difficult must describe the game.

There you have it, the game will be difficult... but...

But is a very short word
Words that are short are often to the point
Pointy things are sharp
Sharp things cut
Cut things are smaller
Smaller things are often more valuable
Valuable things are precious
Precious decribes rare jewels
Rare jewels are also known as diamonds
Diamonds are on diamond plate
Diamond plate is in the clue

Now obviously, Diamond plate must be in the game because it ties in DIRECTLY WITH BUT, as shown above..

Above is higher than below
Below is often considered less
Less is more
More is always better
Better is in the eyes of the beholder
Beholders often look at beauty
Beauty is found on the inside
Inside is where most things robotics have occured

Obviously, once again, the game will take place inside... not outside because that would be silly.

Silly is funny
Funny can be taken with a grain of salt
Salt causes heart conditions
Heart conditions are bad
Bad is not good
Good is yet another adjective
Adjectives describe people
People are smart
Smart is what programmers are
Programmers like code
Code is strings
Strings can be long
Long... LONG

Long... there will be a new time limit which is longer than the previous games.

Games are played for enjoyment
Enjoyment is obtained through fun...
Fun is funny...

It all ties in... The pieces are finally falling into place. It is just so logical, I can't believe no one saw it before.

WLentlie I think you may have gone a little far in your thinking process. Try starting out simple. The '5' may stand for the number of allotted 'players' per team. The diamond plating may represent a target of some kind. If you look closely it looks like a target pattern in different shades of blue around the diamond plating. Who knows. Maybe you were correct in going this deeply into your ideas. Maybe First did this to trick us into thinking deeply or maybe not. We just need to discuss our ideas and come up with an objective.

As WLentlie said, five is in fact a number. But I think that this is just a representation of a marker above possibly...five targets. Don't think that there is any real meaning to the diamond plate, just something to put the five on to make it look cool; and the blue, probably just back lighting. So the only thing that I think can come out of this clue is that there is five or more targets of some sort that you have to get something into somehow.

Ok, for those of you that did not notice, my post above was in fact satire. However, I have been reading through the discussions on chief delphi and I am pretty sure in a few of the possible meanings.

First of all, the blue background appears just to be a 3DStudioMax Animated background, so I think all the rumors of water are unnecessary.

5 is on diamond plate. What other... 5 of diamonds.... can you think of? Well, there is of course the 5 of diamonds. I think that may be describing our playing field, but instead of the platforms, or game pieces, being Diamonds, they may be circles made out of diamond plate. So something like this.

Where the black regions are the playing field itself, and the white circles are diamond plate platforms, or even possibly game pieces.

What do you guys think?

has anyone considered a reference to the movie short circuit?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Circuit_%28film%29

I think that WLentlie is correct in his theory. The 5 of diamonds is cool to think about because it would make a reasonable game field layout. The diamond plate is prabrobly going to be one of the main materials in this years field being used as a game pieces or platforms. Another tought is that there may be another ramp this year because in last years game that was where diamond plate was used. Let me know what you think of this idea. M. Lyons

If the entire firld is made of diamond plate it will be harder to push opponets around. it will also be harder to control the playing piecies

That is true, the diamond plate could make things harder but an entire field of the stuff isn't really feasible. Keep in mind that the field has to be packed up and moved to different regionals so it can't be big and heavy. I don't think we'll see an excursion from carpet because that is light, easily rollable, and also it won't damage the floor underneath.

I like the idea of the 5 of diamonds layout. I think it may also have a double meaning in that our playing pieces will be diamonds. That way, they can just take two tetras and put them together (although this would be a fairly large playing piece).

With the certainty of being dim: where did the diamond come from? The plate looks (to me) just as much like a disc of metal with a non-slip surface. Nickel, perhaps, given the five? Blue background - night-time? Will this be in the dark? Or perhaps it's just a counter (double meaning)? So the robots will have to place something tidily on a counter in the dark. Wrong again... Next!

what about a 5 sided field and we have to manipulate objects made of diamond plate

Ok I know exactly what this means as I have been studying these things for years now. The five is simply the answer to the question "what comes after 4 and before 6 in a list of integers?" That's all. It must be a popular question because the game design committee felt they needed to answer it. So for all of you who have pondered that question before in your lives, there you go. The diamond plate is broken up into two parts. The diamond part means that each team will have to go on a mining trip prior to competing. As if that is tough enough, you must paint the entire mine blue once you get there, hence the backdrop of the clue. The plate part actually has nothing to do with the game at all. It is simply an attempt at getting kids more interested in doing the dishes. You might be wondering how any of this relates to the game at all. Simple. By helping your parents with the dishes, they will be more inclined to buy you any number of blue paint cans that you desire. This offer has always been on the table but you never bothered to take advantage of it since you knew that you wanted more than 4 cans but less than 6. Since the game design committee let you in on the secret that 5 is between those numbers, you can now do the dishes and ask for 5 paint cans full of blueness. It is common knowledge that the typical mine takes either 3 red, 12 yellow, 7 green, 8 orange, 1 purple, or 5 blue paint cans to paint it completely. That's right. You now have the parfect number of paint cans to paint the entire mine blue, fulfilling that prerequisite of competition. Once you arrive at the competition, you will simply be asked to hand over your mining pictures. The prettiest color of blue wins folks. Your welcome for the expert opinion.

Whoever is that cunning fellow who posted those beautiful words before me, bravo. He must be a true master of his craft. (hehehe. it was me before i remembered to log in)

My guess: 5 robots. 3 vs. 2. The two robots have to defend a diamond plated ramp in the middle of the field against the other 3 bots. Regardless of what the game is though, Team 250 will be ready to show that those two silver medals were not a fluke.

Seeing as though the significance of the 5 and the diamond plate have already been discussed, I'll leave my guess as to what the blue represents. I know that on the chief delphi websites, many have already ruled out the possibility of the matches occurring over water (with good reason too), so that eliminates that option. I was thinking that, like last year, the target is found near the light, but instead of a green light, it was blue.

A week until kickoff and then we'll be able to see what FIRST has decided to throw at us this year.

I don't think the blue background looks like water. It looks more like a particle effect that i have used frequently in Adobe PhotoShop. I don't think, from what i have read, that the background has any significance.

But back to the number on the diamond plating. I think it describes the teams. I think that the teams are not 2 vs. 3 ass describe above, but 2 vs. 2 but with a referee robot of some sorts. Like the 'ref' robot either helps both side 'score' (if it is a points game) or maybe even try and prevent both sides from 'scoring'.

As a college student who takes the subway to school, I recognized the diamond plate as a subway/sewer covering that could represent the targets on the floor that the teams have to occupy for points. On the outside of the diamond plate circle there is a slight shadow, which could possibly light up blue or red depending on which team occupies the circle/target.

Returning member of team 484

Diamonds on a disk....Could be we are talking about responding to sound this year!

diamond shaped field (diamond plate)

heavy high targets need pushed to toggle for points (diamond plate is heavy, high 5)

5 players per team (the number 5)

low friction playing field (UHMW) (the water looking background signifies slippery when wet -- can't use water though because most competitions are on basketball fields).

ok all great ideas and i guess all possibilitys i like the gaurding diamond plate idea but maybe it's not 3 vs. 2 but maybe you must last 5 minutes 3 vs. 3 and if the defenders win 5 points are awarded and if the "attackers" win they get 5 points. just a thought maybe im totally off

good point S.Man, I think that the game will go along with, at least strategy-wise, with the offense/defense thing. and that the 5 could be a target that you have to hit to decide whether or not you're offense or defense.

did anyone else notice that the 5 is on the diamond plate, like that you can see the pattern through the 5? i don't if its particularly relevant, but its just something i noticed.

but i guess we'll find out for sure tomorrow!!

I doubt that there will be 5 players on a team, because there is only so much room on the field, and the field is already cramped enough with 6 bots on the field. They could make the field bigger I suppose, but I think they'll try to stick to the same constraints on the field. it just makes it easier for them and all of the regionals that have to be set up.

I think that the diamond plate is a target worth 5 points every time it is hit or has something placed on it. I know last year was a shooting game, but maybe this time things have to be placed on a specific area. As for the blue background, I assume that has something to do with the camera. Just a guess.

Has anyone noticed that a baseball diamond has 5 sides?

In response to, "Has anyone noticed that a baseball diamond has 5 sides?"

Are you talking about the shape of home plate?

I was talking the shape of the field, but I think home plate and the field are shaped the same. Just something to throw out there.

Hey what about having to extract plates from water and distinguish them from other plates with different numbers. Kind of like the ping pong ball carnival game

I don't think that there will be water involved because water + electronics =~ smoke. As we all know, FIRST is big into safety so I don't think they'd put them together. Maybe the blue is referring to the team color. As in, this isn't going to be a team v. team in the match, but all 5 robots will be working together. So there will be 5 teams all on the blue alliance. Along those lines, maybe they're taking in something from the Lego League challenges where you have to complete 5 tasks with your 5 robots?

Great suggestions about what the clue may have meant, but alas, again this year the clue was undecipherable. NASA broadcast the FIRST Kickoff on Saturday, and we learned that there will be no water, nor diamonds of any sort beyond what is on the diamond plate field elements. Nor will there be balls, but we will be playing with swim tubes, which FIRST has dubbed ringers, keepers and spoilers depending on their markings and function in the game. Jegan explains all that in her post, but back to the clue...

What we were seeing was a straight on view of one of 24 legs of three giant spiders on which we will place the inner tubes. Each leg on a spider is numbered 1-8, FIRST decided to show us number the number 5 leg; arbitrary I suppose. I would have chosen number six or seven! The diamond plate was a 10 inch disk attached to the end of each leg; what wasn't shown was the point of attachment of the leg at the bottom of the disk and the "rubber hose-like" stinger protruding from the top of the disk on the opposite side. (We'll be looking for some suggestions for manipulating and scoring, later on.) The blue background was an inner tube in the scoring position on the leg; we have blue, red and black inner tubes to manipulate.

So there you have it, the clue was an actual image of a playing field element. What do they say about things in plain sight...? It was interesting and fun to see folks' speculations. I hope those very creative posters did not use up too much imagination on those posts, as we need that type of out-of-the box thinkers to contribute to our robot design process.

why dont we have thsi amny people discussing the new topic?

Sorry about getting in late, I had forgotten that the clue would be coming out! As pointed out in a ChiefDelphi forum, those coordinates are in Copley Square. There is a church there called Trinity church. My guess is that the 342 deals with the elevation that inside trinity church. It could also make reference to the Hancock Tower which can be seen from Copley. With this in mind, you may have to make 3 (trinity) towers (hancock tower). There is also the Old South Church which might have something at the elevation of 342'. Maybe a bell will come into play somewhere in the game?

Using Google Earth, if you go to the lat/lon and then put the eye elevation at 342, the light looks like it's a triangle, so maybe that's going to be the shape of the piece and you have to make towers? The shadow looks like a trough, so maybe you'll have to put something in troughs on towers? With bells on?

well thats all fine and good but the only rason i posted in last years thread was because no one was positng in this years you should repost in this years :P