I hope you all had as much fun with this as I did!
My initial fears about being too simple proved unjustified. It seems everyone had just as much trouble coping with
a) the impact of the falling dillos, and
b) the loss of symmetrical balance as 3 dillos became 2.
The wide variety of solutions is amazing. It even prompted a visit by the "caped avenger" himself.....
And, right up until the last few minutes, I thought we could have an incredible 3-way tie for the win.
But, a clear winner emerged:
1st with 1846 is mark_man. Congratulations!
Equal 2nd with 1838 is Rob and Votart Silak.
4th with 1808 is KuzyaHG
I was even inspired to have a serious go myself.
Of course I had to disqualify my solutions for 1860 and 1870 , and I even had two schemes for achieving 1880, but couldn't get the catcher to survive the landing.
It took me 4 days to work out my "final" solution: The moment when I suddenly saw the answer to my failing evolution of 1860-Stingray, was quite literally "Eureka!"
There was more than one way to make a springy shock-absorber for the landing..... Just watch how much the centre high point of the Stingray catcher moves vertically.
You might marvel at their elegant strangeness, or kick yourself for not spotting it yourself.....