Armadillo Run forum

This time we had 24 solutions from 13 authors. Dudiobugtron was nice enough to provide screenshots of some solutions, which I'll show shortly. The approaches were more varied than I expected, though all the really competitive ones used a rotating arm with a moving weight.

Here are some of the less optimized but more interesting solutions:


Our resident alien Kingofthespill built this UFO - I don't want to know how much tweaking it took to get this to work.


Protestboy built this one. It's a really interesting variant in that it keeps balanced and does not break even with the powerful expansion of the rubber.


This bridge was built by Rob Garford. He solved the problem with this kind of approach (the weight of the moving ball) very nicely. Also check out his other bridges, including a slider!


Skrying is known for liking to use rockets, and if that doesn't solve the problem some more rockets certainly will!


And now, without further ado, the winning solution:

?rjan (hmpf, I always have to copy and paste ) already showed promising results in the last contest, but this time he has truly outdone himself. This solution, "The dying Pelican", leaves $5730 and wins the contest. However, he didn't stop here but also solved the level in 4 other ways, including the awesome "Bat".


Here is the zip containing all the solutions, have a look!

Thanks to dudiobugtron for the level and hosting the contest - and the .end file! Also thanks to all those who participated. See you again soon.

Congratulations ?rjan!

And my UFO was fairly easy, probably under 15 minutes to do.

PeterT wrote:
Protestboy built this one. It's a really interesting variant in that it keeps balanced and does not break even with the powerful expansion of the rubber.

This was probably my favourite Solution - attaching the rubber to the main mechanism is fraught with danger as Peter points out, but also very beneficial if you can make it work - not only does the mechanism act as the 'brace' to give the rubber more lift (removing the need for an expensive free-floating base as used above - or a piece of rope as used by Sparrow!) but is also means you get to use the rubber as a counter-weight again saving you even more $ on metal bars.
Very nice first entry from protest boy.

Nice solutions everyone

Congratulations to OJ!

-BFC

I noticed that all the $2700+ solutions all start largely above the single anchor point. I'm curious if that was difficult, as when I tried that approach the structure was constantly breaking after rotating half way.

Mohoho I really enjoyed all those solutions. From the UFO to the organic motions of the Protestboys rubberpunch/catchingarm and the rest of the crazy stuff!
I was hanging around 5500+ for a long time and allmost gave up at 5600+, but late at night to sunday I was lucky, or perhaps so tired that I was able to belive that this could work.
Nice work everyone!!! Hmmm, now I have to administrate #10

Actually I have #10 ready. But I am not sure if its a cool enough map. Well they can't all be as cool as the rest anyway But there is a .end file at least Perhaps you can tell me if the lvl sucks enough, then I just make another one Yup! Of course: Its not impossible that the map rocks your socks of.

kingofthespill wrote:I noticed that all the $2700+ solutions all start largely above the single anchor point. I'm curious if that was difficult, as when I tried that approach the structure was constantly breaking after rotating half way.

The tale you use in "noonchuck" is similar to mine. With that I was able to control the last whip of the tail. It was also very surprising how small shanges in angles and proportions help (maybe) more than additional suporting material. I also think that perhaps metalbars under stetch-stress lasted longer when the tale was resting over them in the first important seconds. Just a bit though. A good thing about placing the sonstruction above the anchor is that you then have a lot of potential energy as it will "fall" down. I guess that was not exactly the answer you were looking for but, ehr... I had to say something interesting since I am the winner this time

Some Inspired soloutions there I cant believe there were so many ways to complete the same problem. All Ive got to do next time is remember to post my soloution and think a bit more out of the box. Well done ?rjan I look forward to the next challenge.

King,

The trick was to make the left side of the structure (viewed from before you press start) have less mass than the right but, at the same time not have too much more on the right side. Having too much on the right results in an acceleration that is high enough to over stretch the one bar in the middle. The shifting weight everyone used can't be too much or it puts too much jerk into the structure.

Just as a reference for anyone not familiar with jerk: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerk

I was also reasonably sure the top few solutions would be very close and similar in design as you are ultimately limited by material strengths on this one. There was only one real way to skin this cat so to speak. Orjan found the most effecient this go

Looking forward to a non void type possibly for the next round!

-BFC

I have made a .rar file taht is 264kb, hope thats not annoyingly big for anyone (?) There is a litle silly secret in the play-level. Perhaps somebody notice. Well. It is kind of a hybrid between void oand not void, I think it perhaps depend on the solution. It is not hard to finnish if you dont mind money spent. Maybe wednesday is enough time? Or am I messing it all up?

Congratulations ?rjan! Norway for the win!

Seems like I sent my solution too late

well well, it was shitty anyway... (5428)

BioDroid wrote:Seems like I sent my solution too late

well well, it was shirty anyway... (5428)

I still haven't received your email Biodroid - hopefully i didn't delete it accidentally!

np, It wasnt winning anyway

Thanks for the explanation BFC and ?rjan. I guess I just learned something new about physics!

I must congratulate everyone who hit 2700 . It is difficult to see what had to go into it to get that to work. I have been playing around with a similar $2700 + design and it is very easy to break. If it doesn't break, it is short of the mass required to get it all the way to the exit.

?rjan Flatseth wrote:A good thing about placing the sonstruction above the anchor is that you then have a lot of potential energy as it will "fall" down.

I knew I was talking too much at that party about how I got above 5700...