ARF Contest A #1 Results

[kingofthespill]

Contest results are in!

I must say there was a variety, far more than I envisioned.

Based on what people's entries I think the falling rubber weights worked well, adding to what probably would have been a less interesting challenge. They were not that difficult to ignore but tricky to harness. Those folks who spent time attempting to recycle them seem to have been rewarded .

Here are just some of the solutions...

Skelly had one of my favorite expensive constructions. It looks like architectural sculpture:



PeterT had a many creative solutions including this large structure with a mid trampoline spring, trap-door catcher, and compressed-rubber-force propulsion:



The most popular and cheapest approach was a metal rod catcher arm. JamesBx was the first person to send one that also successfully recycled the falling rubber into a catcher:



Many folks hit the heights of $7400+, including JP with his counterweight propelled catcher arm design:


Not many hit $7500, but it was achieved. And the winner is BFC who finally hit $7520 using a catcher arm that was seriously in danger of breaking and a custom impulse sling/GPE launcher.



Congratulations!

[kingofthespill]

I just saw casius' "Strong Man" and which I had posted something about that now... one of a kind .

?rjan's >$7500 was notable because it did not recycle anything.

[PeterT]

Ah! I thought that any solution achieving 500+ would have to use just one rubber, but I never thought that it would be possible to use the falling blocks in the catcher and still build a cheap one!
Again goes to show that you should never discount an idea before actually having tried to build it.

[edit]
Small correction: My strange solution does not use cloth-force propulsion, but rather rubber-force propulsion. Or perhaps you meant that the method by which the force is generated is similar to that used with the cloth balls?


Anyway, thanks a lot king for the original level, the great handling of the contest and this results thread!

[edit2]
I just looked at the results, I love Casius' "Strong Man". And Orjan again impressively illustrates that he has far too much time at his hands

[Malco]

I am continually amazed/frustrated with the amazing inginuity of the soloutions! Well dont to everyone.

[Ogre]

I just saw casius' "Strong Man" and which I had posted something about that now... one of a kind .

?rjan's >$7500 was notable because it did not recycle anything.

And because it's completely insane I can't imagine how long it took to tweak that one to get the balance just right.

I tried building one that recycled the falling weights as a catcher, but didn't quite get it working, and it wasn't looking like 7500 to me, though it might have gotten higher than my $7438.

[kingofthespill]

Sorry Peter, I was thinking of another level as I wrote that .

[PeterT]

And because it's completely insane

Pah! You're one to talk about insane solutions! One look at your "tower" and everyone would question your sanity

[Ogre]

And because it's completely insane

Pah! You're one to talk about insane solutions! One look at your "tower" and everyone would question your sanity

That tower is a work of art, carefully planned and constructed lovingly with every detail perfect!

Ok, so maybe if it looks like I built something sane and normal and then started randomly whacking pieces off of it... it's because that's exactly what happened

[BFC]

Phew!

Man I put some time into this one. Mine breaks down into 2 separate pixel sensitive tweaking areas. The launcher and the catcher both required a huge amount of patience to get them to work together properly.

Edit my solution and you'll see what I mean

Orjan's flat catcher is very impressive.

There are several solutions that are very very different from what I thought would be a cheap way to go.

Totally amazing work everyone

I'll get started on preparing the next A type level for Sunday.

-BFC

[Ogre]

Phew!

Man I put some time into this one. Mine breaks down into 2 separate pixel sensitive tweaking areas. The launcher and the catcher both required a huge amount of patience to get them to work together properly.

The rope on my swing can be adjusted to give a $7440 solution (+$2), but adjusting any of the three points of the triangle there were single pixels where one way made the carrier fall off to the left too early, or off the right instead. Very frustrating. The tower itself, crazy as it looks, is not nearly as sensitive as the swing

[Casius]

Congratulate to BFC.

And to the rest of you trucking genius.

I did not see the use of the falling rubber.

kingofthespill !
Do you now what "spill" is in norwegian?

It is "game".

So you are the "King of the game" in a twisted
English norwegian llanguage.

[kingofthespill]

lol, that I did not know. It is really a little play on words, as it rhymes with "King of the hill".

Now that I think about it I have heard of "Spiel" which is German and probably is the same definition.

[dudiobugtron]

I never thought that it would be possible to use the falling blocks in the catcher and still build a cheap one!
Again goes to show that you should never discount an idea before actually having tried to build it.

As I said to king of the spill when I submitted mine:
"If this type of solution does win it will be by someone with a lot more patience than me. "

So, well done BFC!!! You are a tweaking genius

'Gotta Tweak the Power Back' deserves a lot of admiration as well! The fact that two completely different solutions got such similar scores means king of the spill deserves a big round of applause too!

So many fun to watch solutions - thanks to everyone who submitted one

[Bob]

Once again it's time to congratulate BFC

For some reason I thought the contest would end on sunday, so this is the first time I did not submit a solution to a ARF contest
I was working on a fairly interesting solution, but it wouldn't have won anyway.

[?rjan Flatseth]

I actually was convinced that there would be just about two main cind of solutions to this - and that even those would be very similar. I was not very right at all. I never thought of using the faling rubber as a catcher And to use the rubber to anything at all - I thought it would be to expencive and comlpicated to even bother try for. Not even for the fun of it.

I had really given up, and resigned at 7446, witch was pritty fast to make. I went out to paint the house, but of course it started raining - as it rains 276 days in year in Bergen. So I had no choice but to play armadillo (boho) and tweak for about two hours and finally got that 500+ score. The tweaking process was like taming a drunk pelican with a wet aspargus and a brave heart. Making it do the moonwalk and sing forever young. But it was a very purposive tweaking process so it actually didnt take for ever, though it was hard tweaking work.

Congratulations to BFC for his exemplary stuff! And stash!
I was drinking my self drunk with Toa last night so I have some hang over , so perhaps not everything i write is making sense. What happend? Where am I? Whats this? Angst! Gotta go!