2014 FRC Game Hint Roundup

Mon Dec 23, 2013, 3:06 PM by LabLayers

On December 20, 2013 - 16:08, FIRST put out an official game hint and left us with an interesting set of numbers:

8234/57, 61126/1963, 62326/15806

There's a long thread on Chief Delphi analyzing what these clues might really mean, and some of their users have some interesting theories to share. I went ahead and read all 500+ posts so you didn't have to, and found quite a few concepts that may tell us a little about 2014's FRC game:

12/25 - Updated with more interesting concepts!

cgmv123 started by dividing these strings of numbers:

8234/57 = 144.45614035087719298245614035088
61126/1963 = 31.139072847682119205298013245033
62326/15806 = 3.9431861318486650638997848918132

BigJ Googled these numbers as zip codes and came up with this:

61126 is a zip code in Rockford, Illinois.
62326 is a zip code for Colchester Illinois
ZIP codes were intoduced by the postal service in 1963.

Rangel(kf7fdb) plotted these numbers to get a scalene triangle:

This may also been a coincidence, as 4404 PCH Colts finds the water bottles placed in a suspiciously-shaped triangle:

Also, did anyone have any speculation as to why the photo from the Nov 25 blog showed the water bottles? They seemed so arbitrarily yet intentionally placed.

The metadata in this photo has also been suspiciously modified, as John Sabath finds out:

Interestingly enough, Sean Raia rotates the photo and spots numbers inside the mirror:

Well I tried to sketch the shape the bottles make, and it's close but it COULD just be a coincidence. After that, I rotated the image so that the shape matched the graph that somebody posted earlier (page 5?) Then I looked at the image for what seemed to be revealed by the rotation/mirroring and I found something interesting. What picture is this back there and are those two 3's?

Interestingly enough, the mrmummert found some unusual updates to the 2013 game manual:

Hello...

Just for the heck of it i looked at the "Team Updates" on the FRC page and
oddly found updates for 11-26-13 (twice) and 11-27-13. They all say the same thing "three" times. Here is the link

frc-manual.usfirst.org/Updates…

They all seem to reference this past seasons game, but its odd...three
updates all saying the same thing...and all referencing "Section 3"
Could this be yet another hint?

JRuegsegger finds that 8234/57 has something to do with Japan:

Going off the whole number searching thing:

First result on Wikipedia for 8234 is en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8234_Nob… which is an asteroid discovered by a Japanese astronomer.

For the year 57 on Wikipedia, I got en.wikipedia.org/wiki/57 which has some Japanese history about writing.

I have no idea what this could mean, though.

There was also lots of theories about 1963, but Brandon Zalinsky says that this game hint makes more sense for Lunacy.

I seriously hope it's not a Dr. Who reference.

Also 1963 = JFK shot = JFK challenged USA to "go to the moon in this decade" = moon game = Lunacy

Neima agrees, saying:

or it could be a second lunacy challenge

Tottanka (along with many others) had a commonly-shared idea:

obviously a water game.

Natalia from team 1310 expanded on cgmv123's number division and came up with this:

Ascii code 144 is É

144-31=133

Ascii code 133 is à.

133-4 is 129.

Ascii code 129 is ü.

Éàü = eau.

eau means water in French.

Watergame.

There is also more evidence of a water game, as this was posted on Twitter:

This may also be a soccer game, since Justin Montois concludes that numbers reversed refers to the World Cup:

We realized 62326 was a palindrome. So if it's written "backwards and you assume the next number is also written backwards then you get 60851 which lead us to what Colin mentioned...

So basically we got...

61126/1963 related to zip codes...

62326 isn't a zip code but it is a palindrome. Then we reversed 15806 to 60851 and got the zip code for the 2014 world cup host city....

That takes care of the middle and end numbers. We are nowhere on 8234/57.....

Tying these two concepts together, cadandcookies thinks that it's a water game involving balls:

Citation: Here.
1992 - Tennis Balls
1993 - Variety of balls
1994 - Soccer balls
1995 - Vinyl balls
1996 - Large balls
1997 - Inner tubes
1998 - More balls
1999 - Floppies (pillows)
2000 - Balls
2001 - More balls (and movable goals)
2002 - More balls (and movable goals)
2003 - Bins
2004 - Variety of balls
2005 - Tetras
2006 - Poof balls
2007 - Tubes
2008 - Giant balls
2009 - Moon rocks (weird balls)
2010 - Soccer Balls
2011 - Variety tubes
2012 - Foam balls
2013 - Discs

Analysis confirms that 15 out of 22 games have had balls.

Also, molecules are usually presented as attached balls representing atoms, which means I'm 100% confident it's a water game.

Romano2630 finds out that these numbers refer to green:

found out that 8234/57 = 144.4561404... which google brought up to be the hex code of green.

also - 61126/1963 = 31.13907285... which is the hex code of green, same method.

Could there be another alliance? Akash Rastogi thinks so.

Green alliance guys.

NanoCollins notices that the numbers when divided may refer to a driving law in Illinois:

I have an idea. The number when divided might be referencing

TITLE 31
Motor and Other vehicles
CHAPTER 31-14
Speed Restrictions
SECTION 31-14-3

BleakRNS comes up with an interesting theory:

Assuming they're equations, these are their answers in sig figs:
140
31.14
3.9432

If you'll notice, these three numbers, written in the order as they appear in the game hint, can be put in the shape of a pyramid as so:

Something that may catch your eye is that if you take the same arrangement of digits and add them together, you get the preceding number in the bottom row.

Which means that the only two digits remaining are...

I rest my case.

dysonk811 thinks that 2014's game may be a football game:

So here is my idea and i know its a stretch but eh when arent these hints stretches

61126 when added = 16
1963 when added = 19

--- both are the numbers of joe Montana

Now 8234 and 57

He is 57 currently
82 was his pick number
57-34= 23 his age when he was drafted into the nfl

Finally 62326 and 15806

62326 when added = 19
15806 when added = 20

1920 was the year the nfl changed it's name temporarily to apfa

So there's my idea!!! How cool would a football game be?? What are you guys thinking ??

SuperDave777 thinks that the first set of numbers may refer to the field size:

8234 and 57: Playing field size, first in mm then ft.

Martian86 converts these numbers to feet, providing evidence that this may refer to the field size:

So that's about a 27x57 foot field, previously a 27x54 foot field. The difference in length is...three.

Johnson.2937 tells us to look at these numbers a bit differently:

Maybe we are looking at the message the wrong way instead of 8234/57, 61126/1963, 62326/15806 maybe we should look at the comas as arbitrary separators of larger numbers and the actual numbers look like

8234/5761126/196362326/15806

yarden.saa comes up conclusive evidence that 8234/57 might have something to do with a reduced weight limit:

Hi CD,
I searched the numbers in google earth:
The second numer refers to a sign "Security FIRST" and there is a US post office in front of it.
The third number refers to the "FIRST Baptist church"
The first number is very interesting, there is a sign: "WEIGHT LIMITS REDUCED 25% EFFECTIVE 1 JAN TO 1 MAY" which is the FIRST season
The photo of the sign can be found in the link below.
To find it on google earth:
1. Type 8234/57 in the search bar
2. pick the first option (ohio)
3. go to the main street
4. you will see the sign
Open Google Maps

Have a great season!

Thanks to my friends from the FIRST Israel community for helping

Bringing up the link in Google Maps brings up this sign:

Tomker thinks that the new mega-regional format of 2014's game may set new requirements on how much spare parts each team is allowed to bring:

My best bet is that the 25% weight reduction refers to the 30 lbs of spare parts that each team is allowed to bring to each event.
Since FIRST is trying to get all areas into the district format, more and more teams are going to atend multiple events, it means that more teams will be able to make big changes/upgrades between each event and they probably want to prevent it from being too big of a factor.

This might also be the other way around, according to Headphones:

I realize that this is unlikely, but I just want to throw it out there:

The sign says weight *limits* reduced 25% -- Could this not be interpreted to mean relaxing the limits, rather than tightening them?

(That was just the first thing that popped into my head upon reading the sign -- English is a strange, strange language, since it's the opposite of the sign's intended meaning....)

What else might these numbers mean? We will out find for certain at Kickoff on January 4th, 10:30am EST!

Leave your thoughts on in the comments below or reply to the forum thread on Chief Delphi.

3 Comments

2014 FRC Game Hint Roundup by LabLayers

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There's a long thread on Chief Delphi analyzing what these clues might really mean, and some of their users have some interesting ideas to share. I went ahead and read all 500+ posts so you didn't have to, and found quite a few concepts that may tell us a little about 2014's FRC game.

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Animecafe102 Featured By Owner Jan 14, 2014

woah other robotics people on here030 welp the games out now so no further need for the clueXD I fdidn expect to find anything by looking up FRC on here XD

Maitcha Featured By Owner Dec 28, 2013 Hobbyist Artist

www.shopping.com/xSBS-doctor-w…

1963 = Doctor who premieres

61126 = Unloading Crane

-Isabel de Aranaga

pawsome12 Featured By Owner Dec 27, 2013

Using Google Maps to hide clues seems reasonable since Google is a big supporter of FIRST. If that were the case, it would appear that we are possibly being given all three clues at once. But it still does not answer what the map clues mean in reference to the game. Will the robots need to be smaller and lighter? Are the robots weighing and delivering items? Does a church reference have something to do with bells, bell towers, or the like? I guess we will find out on the fourth of January if these clues are as cryptic as those in the past.... Though I am relatively sure that there will not be water involved. FIRST is moving away from larger venues partly because of cost. A water based game would be very expensive and the smaller local events would not agreed to it sighting possible damages. Also, electronics and water don't mix...too dangerous. Throwing footballs seems doable, though it would be very similar in scoring to last year's Frisbee throwing. Anyway, it's fun to try to guess...everyone has some great logic behind their reasoning.