Author Topic: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)  (Read 73293 times)

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Offline georgiapeach

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #150 on: March 21, 2010, 07:22:25 PM »
:bigwelcome  NoLongerLurking!! Best kind of name!! :waves:
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Offline GonzaloChileno

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #151 on: March 21, 2010, 07:41:24 PM »
Please someone give me a link to the livestream!!! Please!!!
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Offline georgiapeach

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #152 on: March 21, 2010, 08:08:48 PM »
Please someone give me a link to the livestream!!! Please!!!

That info is in the Watch Amazing Race live thread here:

http://forum.realityfanforum.com/index.php/topic,21687.msg514076.html#msg514076
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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #153 on: March 21, 2010, 08:41:58 PM »
You know the episode hasn't finished airing here yet.  :knuckles: :knuckles: :knuckles:
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Offline georgiapeach

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #154 on: March 21, 2010, 09:56:59 PM »
You know the episode hasn't finished airing here yet.  :knuckles: :knuckles: :knuckles:

Don't worry...the live link was time matched with NYC, so right with us, not ahead.
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Offline NoLongerLurking

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #155 on: March 21, 2010, 10:26:36 PM »
:bigwelcome  NoLongerLurking!! Best kind of name!! :waves:

Thanks for the welcome, Georgiapeach!  I have been a long time admirer of all the clever folks here.

Offline georgiapeach

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #156 on: March 21, 2010, 10:38:00 PM »
Always nice to have more help, so please join in the fun!! :hearts:
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Offline Evan_Weinstein

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #157 on: March 22, 2010, 12:17:38 AM »
yea, welcome NoLongerLurking to this community

here is the leaderboard as on the 6th episode
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Offline Evan_Weinstein

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #158 on: March 22, 2010, 02:24:31 AM »
just realised that this episode had the new intro, nice-ed
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Offline Jobby

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #159 on: March 22, 2010, 09:53:07 AM »
Great episode! Except with the fact that the detectives did a hat trick.. everything else was great!!

Great Detour choices, great Roadblock!

Self-driving for the entire leg!

Ambiguous clues! The bottle cork and the piece of clue that direct teams to Tattinger. And the Joan of Arc! Very well-planned leg!

I would have personally done the finding the grapes detour... building a pyramid worth of glasses... that's crazy. My respect goes out to Dan and Jordan for even completing that. I even think it's worth giving up 3 race placings to complete a feat like that.

Dan and Jordan were really great to watch this leg. I like the fact that the cowboys deal with setbacks with smiles. The duct tape that Steve used was great! Carol and Brandy were not being b***hes because they were obviously at the front of the pack...

As for Jeff and Jordan elimination... it was overdue. :lol:


Offline apskip

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #160 on: March 22, 2010, 03:12:14 PM »
I see the glass stacking/champagne pouring exercise as foremost  a mathematical challenge. If I were running the race and had that task, the first thing I would ask for is calculator (even though I did not use on in what I describe below), pencil and paper tp figure out the theoretically strongest arrangement of glasses. I did this and it took me 12 minutes to get the soundest mathematical solution. My sense is that there are multiple solutions that work but one is probably optimum. Can you figure out the optimum without outside assistance and how long did it take you?

There is much more in this task than just the mathematical solution since how well the structure supports itself depends on how good you are building it (Boston Rob would excel at this part) but since I might have a half dozen champagne glasses available I don't expect to test my mathematical solution any time soon.


Offline chill_sd

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #161 on: March 22, 2010, 03:37:05 PM »
My guess would be a tetrahedral shape, rather than a pyramid.  The base would be a triangle with 15 glasses on each side, then 14, 13, etc.  This would total 681 680 glasses.  Each glass would rest on 3 below it, providing greater stability.



Edit: After reviewing the episode, I thought I would have to leave out one glass to make it 680, but I discovered I had miscalculated one of the levels, so the total of a triangular pyramid with 15 glasses at the base is 680, as stated by Phil.
« Last Edit: March 22, 2010, 04:04:16 PM by chill_sd »

Offline walkingpneumonia

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #162 on: March 22, 2010, 03:57:43 PM »
My guess would be a tetrahedral shape, rather than a pyramid.  The base would be a triangle with 15 glasses on each side, then 14, 13, etc.  This would total 681 glasses.  Each glass would rest on 3 below it, providing greater stability.
The example pyramid created by the "sommeliers" has a triangular base, whereas both sets of racers created theirs with a square base. Unfortunately neither team had the benefit of seeing the example and couldn't think outside the box.
I'm still having problems with the math though - how would you calculate this other than drawing it out level by level?
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Offline Belle Book

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #163 on: March 22, 2010, 04:00:05 PM »
I would've gone with the grapes task.  Sure, it's a luck-based task but I don't think I'd have the skill to do the glasses one.  In most cases, it's better to go with skill than luck but there are exceptions -- and this is one of them.

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Offline chill_sd

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #164 on: March 22, 2010, 04:10:42 PM »
I'm still having problems with the math though - how would you calculate this other than drawing it out level by level?

There are some shortcuts for adding up triangular numbers, but as you can see from the edit above, I made a small mistake.  When I went back, I used a spread sheet to count all the glasses that would be in each row.

A quick explanation of the shortcut:  The bottom level would have rows of glasses starting with 1 at the top of the triangle and progressing to 15 at the bottom.  The top and bottom rows add up to 16, as do the 2nd and 14th rows.  So you have 7 pairs of rows adding up to 16 glasses each pair, and 8 in the middle row.  7 times 16 plus 8 = 120 glasses in the bottom layer.


PS - I would have used a similar trick to add up the numbers on a clock face (I don't remember which season, but it was part of a task involving finding numbers to open a safe).  The clock has 12 numbers, which can be paired up 1-12, 2-11, 3-10, 4-9. 5-8 and 6-7.  Six pairs that add up to 13.  6 times 13 = 78, which is the sum of the numbers 1 through 12.
« Last Edit: March 22, 2010, 04:16:39 PM by chill_sd »

Offline Hooky

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #165 on: March 22, 2010, 05:04:13 PM »
PS - I would have used a similar trick to add up the numbers on a clock face (I don't remember which season, but it was part of a task involving finding numbers to open a safe).  The clock has 12 numbers, which can be paired up 1-12, 2-11, 3-10, 4-9. 5-8 and 6-7.  Six pairs that add up to 13.  6 times 13 = 78, which is the sum of the numbers 1 through 12.

Season 3. :tup:

Great episode! Except with the fact that the detectives did a hat trick.. everything else was great!!

Great Detour choices, great Roadblock!

Self-driving for the entire leg!

Ambiguous clues! The bottle cork and the piece of clue that direct teams to Tattinger. And the Joan of Arc! Very well-planned leg!

I would have personally done the finding the grapes detour... building a pyramid worth of glasses... that's crazy. My respect goes out to Dan and Jordan for even completing that. I even think it's worth giving up 3 race placings to complete a feat like that.

Dan and Jordan were really great to watch this leg. I like the fact that the cowboys deal with setbacks with smiles. The duct tape that Steve used was great! Carol and Brandy were not being b***hes because they were obviously at the front of the pack...

As for Jeff and Jordan elimination... it was overdue. :lol:

This week (out of laziness) I will forego my usual rant/opinion about the leg and agree with everything you said. This was a great leg, and it managed to make up for being the second leg in a row without any bunching points. :jumpy:
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Offline cosmophobia

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #166 on: March 22, 2010, 08:08:49 PM »
I'm still having problems with the math though - how would you calculate this other than drawing it out level by level?

There are some shortcuts for adding up triangular numbers, but as you can see from the edit above, I made a small mistake.  When I went back, I used a spread sheet to count all the glasses that would be in each row.

A quick explanation of the shortcut:  The bottom level would have rows of glasses starting with 1 at the top of the triangle and progressing to 15 at the bottom.  The top and bottom rows add up to 16, as do the 2nd and 14th rows.  So you have 7 pairs of rows adding up to 16 glasses each pair, and 8 in the middle row.  7 times 16 plus 8 = 120 glasses in the bottom layer.


PS - I would have used a similar trick to add up the numbers on a clock face (I don't remember which season, but it was part of a task involving finding numbers to open a safe).  The clock has 12 numbers, which can be paired up 1-12, 2-11, 3-10, 4-9. 5-8 and 6-7.  Six pairs that add up to 13.  6 times 13 = 78, which is the sum of the numbers 1 through 12.


Oh, it's quicker with a summatory formula. The number you want to add up to, multiplied by its succesor and divide by 2
so: (12x13):2 = 6x13= 78!
I LOVED that switzerland detour.

Offline apskip

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #167 on: March 22, 2010, 09:23:26 PM »
OK, it's time to reveal in two parts what I know about the Champagne Pyramid Trick.

First you have to have a stable formation, a tetrahedron or triangular pyramid  that will use up 680 wine glasses. This is a lot harder than it sounds. I did a little by trial and error:
1. I looked at an extended bowling pin arrangement and discovered that with 15 glasses in the bottom triangle the total in the stack of having one less in each ascending row would be 666. Unless a square pattern fits better (which as you will see in #2 is not the case)you have to add glasses into the formation somewhere, which is one for each level except the top one (which has to be just 1)
2. You must switch to a square pattern and start the same way with a level 1 square of 9 x 9. Level 2 is 8x8, 64. Level 3 is 7x7, 49. Level 4 is 6x6, 36. Level 5 is 5x5, 25. level 6 is 4x4, 16, level 7  is 3x3, 8. level is 2x2, 4. level 9 is 1. Add them up quickly and you get 819, so level 1 must start with 12 and not 13. then you add them up to get 650. You can't get there from here on this one either.
3. A hybrid approach appears the only one that can work but I have to back off and say that the mathematical closure on this just isn't there. My mistakes in the earlier two approaches led to inaccurate conclusions, but I hope you had some fun trying out your mathematical dexterity. If anyone did better let's hear about it.


The other side of the equation is how to actually stack the glasses. Heresay has it that if you take out one glass from most many levels, the champagne will be able to drain through there. Here is what a professional bartender who has done this trick has been reported about the proper way to do it:

You know that the glasses have to be stacked in a pyramid.
Now here's the trick to filling all the glasses and not pouring your Champagne all over the table top....make sure your glasses are about a fingers width apart all around. If they're touching each other, the Champagne will follow the rims and stems and just dribble all over the place(not good). By keeping the glasses from touching each other, the Wine will follow the stems and bases of the glass just like the little waterfall you want to have.
You won't even need a tray under glasses.  No wine will wet the table as long as the glasses are not touching each other.

No doubt there will be those dissatisfied with this analysis. I say you should go out and buy 660 wine glasses and try it out.

I expect all of you will enjoy this demonstration of a tetrahedron shape with about 5000 glasses, which is totally amazing:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/343130/pyramid_of_glasses/

Try it at your next party.

Offline Dånooky

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #168 on: March 22, 2010, 09:29:34 PM »
OK, it's time to reveal in two parts what I know about the Champagne Pyramid Trick.

First you have to have a stable formation, a tetrahedron or triangular pyramid  that will use up 680 wine glasses. This is a lot harder than it sounds. I did a little by trial and error:
1. I looked at an extended bowling pin arrangement and discovered that with 15 glasses in the bottom triangle the total in the stack of having one less in each ascending row would be 666. Unless a square pattern fits better (which as you will see in #2 is not the case)you have to add glasses into the formation somewhere, which is one for each level except the top one (which has to be just 1)
2. You must switch to a square pattern and start the same way with a level 1 square of 9 x 9. Level 2 is 8x8, 64. Level 3 is 7x7, 49. Level 4 is 6x6, 36. Level 5 is 5x5, 25. level 6 is 4x4, 16, level 7  is 3x3, 8. level is 2x2, 4. level 9 is 1. Add them up quickly and you get 819, so level 1 must start with 12 and not 13. then you add them up to get 650. You can't get there from here on this one either.
3. A hybrid approach appears the only one that can work but I have to back off and say that the mathematical closure on this just isn't there. My mistakes in the earlier two approaches led to inaccurate conclusions, but I hope you had some fun trying out your mathematical dexterity. If anyone did better let's hear about it.


The other side of the equation is how to actually stack the glasses. Heresay has it that if you take out one glass from most many levels, the champagne will be able to drain through there. Here is what a professional bartender who has done this trick has been reported about the proper way to do it:

You know that the glasses have to be stacked in a pyramid.
Now here's the trick to filling all the glasses and not pouring your Champagne all over the table top....make sure your glasses are about a fingers width apart all around. If they're touching each other, the Champagne will follow the rims and stems and just dribble all over the place(not good). By keeping the glasses from touching each other, the Wine will follow the stems and bases of the glass just like the little waterfall you want to have.
You won't even need a tray under glasses.  No wine will wet the table as long as the glasses are not touching each other.

No doubt there will be those dissatisfied with this analysis. I say you should go out and buy 660 wine glasses and try it out.

I expect all of you will enjoy this demonstration of a tetrahedron shape with about 5000 glasses, which is totally amazing:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/343130/pyramid_of_glasses/

Try it at your next party.

Nice geometrical analysis, and I really want to try it myself (with plastic glasses, mind you :lol:). However, considering the average "apparent intelligence" (smarts shown on-screen) of this season's cast, grape-finding was obviously the safest choice. Kudos to the brothers for completing it even though they had to lose 2 positions.
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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #169 on: March 22, 2010, 11:31:36 PM »
Grapes may have been the needle in the haystack task, but it certainly led to better efficiency as we found out. As we saw with Brent & Caite that stacking the glasses was practically a disaster waiting to happen. Although Dan & Jordan figured it out and did a great job with it.

I do like the increased self-driving this season and increased difficulty in the clues. Reminds me of the first two seasons. :tup:
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Offline chill_sd

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #170 on: March 23, 2010, 12:34:16 AM »
OK, it's time to reveal in two parts what I know about the Champagne Pyramid Trick.

First you have to have a stable formation, a tetrahedron or triangular pyramid  that will use up 680 wine glasses. This is a lot harder than it sounds. I did a little by trial and error:
1. I looked at an extended bowling pin arrangement and discovered that with 15 glasses in the bottom triangle the total in the stack of having one less in each ascending row would be 666. Unless a square pattern fits better (which as you will see in #2 is not the case)you have to add glasses into the formation somewhere, which is one for each level except the top one (which has to be just 1)

This is not accurate.  A tetrahedral stack with a base of 15 has the following number of glasses, starting at the top:

1+3+6+10+15+21+28+36+45+55+66+78+91+105+120 = 680 exactly.

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #171 on: March 23, 2010, 03:00:57 PM »
chill_sd,
You are correct. When I did that addition (by hand) I somehow left off 45 (9th level going up) from the cumulative addition of that sequence due to having the 9 in my first column but not putting anything across from it in the second column and not being able to find that mistake. That explains why I could not make it add up exactly. Thanks for getting it right.

Offline Cocoa

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #172 on: March 25, 2010, 06:54:56 PM »
I calculated and wondered how to stack 680 glasses in 15 levels while in the hospital, and I cannot seriously get it! Kudos chill!
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Offline Dånooky

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #173 on: March 25, 2010, 09:05:23 PM »
I calculated and wondered how to stack 680 glasses in 15 levels while in the hospital, and I cannot seriously get it! Kudos chill!
Try this:
In a triangular fashion
1st level: 1
2nd level: 1 + 2
3rd: 1 + 2 + 3
...
15th: 1 + 2+ 3 + ... + 13 + 14 + 15

If you sum all levels you get (levels * glasses):
15*1 + 14*2 + 13*3 + ... + 9*7 + 8*8 + 7*9 + ... + 3*13 + 2*14 + 1*15
Which equals
2*[15*1 + 14*2 + 13*3 + ... + 9*7] + 8*8 = 680
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Offline mswood

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Re: TAR16 - EP6: "Cathy Drone?" (France)
« Reply #174 on: March 29, 2010, 12:49:06 AM »
Since I was so hard at Louie & Michael and ragging on them for winning a leg, when only Joe & Heidi actually took longer to perform that leg.

With times we can now say that Louie & Michael did in fact run the fastest leg (in fact the only time they have, even with 3 wins, go figure).

They finished the leg 1 minute faster then Carol & Brandy, and with the trouble they had in getting the first half of the leg done, I think they need to give a big thanks to the the lady giving them not only the correct directions (which Carol & Brandy were the only other team to get), but having someone drive them there.  I am willing to guess that was the deciding factor in their winning the leg, not just their performance.

Can I reiterate how much I hate it when teams get someone to lead them the whole way.  Directions I don't mind (as everyone does this), but drive yourself for christ sake.

Oh and Dan & Jordan while it was great that you guys manage to complete the detour.  Boy's it was the single dumbest thing you have done on this race, as that cost you roughly an additional 2 and a half hours over the team that got to the site after you did.  Its the first time they have been the team to actually take the most time to complete the day's task (I would guess that even Jordan & Jeff finished the leg faster).