A.I.R.S Challenge--Amphibious Island Runway to Summit

[Klapaucius]

Ugh, I had a great run and then disaster at the end.  I got my fingers scrambled on the keyboard and did not hit the X key fast enough to cut the throttle when I got over the summit lip.  So I jumped off the opposite edge.  Every subsequent attempt just got worse and worse as I made more and more dumb mistakes.  So I am putting it away for the day and will try again tomorrow.

 

[mystifeid]

Looked like it might be a reasonable time @Klapaucius, so I tried again - here is 4:58. (This is my first ever video upload - apologies if it doesn't work out too well)

 

[Klapaucius]

@mystifeid

It was really cool to see that rover in action. That is some cool, outside-the-box designing.  That will be a hard time to beat, I think.

The leaderboard has been updated.  But of course, this is more about just doing it, so well done all. Cool designs.  Hopefully I will have better luck tomorrow and get one up there. I have two designs to try out.

@XLjedi, I calculated your time based on when you started your actual drive after Val got onboard, which is 8:05 on your video, and 2:01 on your rover clock.  You EVA'd from the Rover at 21:40 and took 40 seconds to walk up and plant the flag. So, that should be 20:19 in total.

[mystifeid]

1 hour ago, Klapaucius said:

That is some cool, outside-the-box designing.

Coming from you, that's a heck of a compliment.

[roboslacker]

I think I'll take this on in my mission report.

[XLjedi]

14 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

I calculated your time based on when you started your actual drive after Val got onboard, which is 8:05 on your video, and 2:01 on your rover clock.  You EVA'd from the Rover at 21:40 and took 40 seconds to walk up and plant the flag. So, that should be 20:19 in total.

Yeah, I figured it was 20-ish minutes...  I coulda shortcutted it, but paused a few times to zoom in/out for dramatic effect, and drive exactly to the summit, as opposed to just planting a flag as soon as I hit green.    Might've cut it by a minute or so down to maybe 19 if I was lucky, but 20 is good!

I was also thinking that I should get to divide my time by 6 for reaching the summit with 6 kerbals instead of 1.  ;-D

[Klapaucius]

The official badge.  You can see a larger version at the bottom of the first post.  Thanks @XLjedi for letting me use his craft in the badge.

 

Edited October 10, 2018 by Klapaucius

[Klapaucius]

For whatever reason, my driving skills have declined. My first run was really good except for that last crash. I had a bunch of stupid crashes after that and so got overly conservative on the land parts. I also lost time by accidentally shutting down my engines (I forgot what action groups  I had assigned the other day--you can also see that by me deploying my ladder in the water!  Final time is 9:50.  I timewarped my walk up the hill and evidently that was enough to flip my rover, which you can see looking like a turtle stuck on its back in the background at the end.  Still, psyched to have accomplished it. I'll probably give it another go.

The design comes from my crawler rover used in @Triop's Desert Race Challenge, but the foils meant raising the centre of gravity and this variant is a lot twitchier.

 

 

[XLjedi]

4 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

The official badge.  

That turned out really good!  I like the way you centered the island in the background.   ...the choice of vehicle?  Meh, I guess it's OK. 

One minor nit though...  I think you meant to say "Amphibious Island RUNWAY to Summit"  as opposed to "Airfield"

Edited October 10, 2018 by XLjedi

[capi3101]

Finally about to start a run (I think) using something I've called the Kerboat 7. Not exactly an imaginative name, I know...

I say "starting to make a run" because yesterday I tried - multiple times - to do one. Discovering the real trick of this challenge is negotiating those slopes - both at the island runway and at the target zone - without breaking anything off...

 

Now, for the record, she does fly (and in FAR) - which is how I got her over to the Runway in the first place.

This is an older screenshot from while I was still checking the proof of the design; canards and flaps were added later.

Provided I stick to the ground from here on out, is this design legal or not? Not trying to break any rules; just asking.

Proof that she boats as well - 

[mystifeid]

7 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

I timewarped my walk up the hill

If you hold the shift key down when using the "w" key, your kerbals will run instead of walk.

Like the look of your rover.

[Klapaucius]

5 hours ago, XLjedi said:

That turned out really good!  I like the way you centered the island in the background.   ...the choice of vehicle?  Meh, I guess it's OK. 

One minor nit though...  I think you meant to say "Amphibious Island RUNWAY to Summit"  as opposed to "Airfield"

Yeah, I realized that this morning. I did it after a long day at work and my brain was on 1/2 impulse power.  I fixed it.

3 hours ago, capi3101 said:

Provided I stick to the ground from here on out, is this design legal or not? Not trying to break any rules; just asking.
 

Absolutely.  I can't wait to see it in action

Edited October 10, 2018 by Klapaucius

[capi3101]

Finished...finally. Wow, this turned out to be a lot more difficult than I thought...

 

https://imgur.com/a/7sXE39X

 

Assuming I haven't broken any rules and my math is correct, the total mission time for the Kerboat 7 was 12:56.

EDIT: Dammit - scratch. I didn't start from the east side of the hangar. Urg...well, it does give me an excuse to fix some of the noted shortcomings with the design.

Edited October 12, 2018 by capi3101
don't remember if it's still possible to embed imgur albums or not...

[XLjedi]

8 minutes ago, capi3101 said:

EDIT: Dammit - scratch. I didn't start from the east side of the hangar. Urg...well, it does give me an excuse to fix some of the noted shortcomings with the design.

I took it as the Island "Runway" to Summit challenge...  so I don't bother to count my time til I leave the runway.

The fact that folks start from that side of the hangar (just a spawn loca) should be irrelevent.

Think you're all good!

Edited October 12, 2018 by XLjedi

[Klapaucius]

22 minutes ago, XLjedi said:

I took it as the Island "Runway" to Summit challenge...  so I don't bother to count my time til I leave the runway.

The fact that folks start from that side of the hangar (just a spawn loca) should be irrelevent.

Think you're all good!

The rule is from the other side of the hangar. See the note in bold--this was added as a clarification after you did your run, so you may not have seen it. Having said that, the time difference from the picture is probably all of 4-5 seconds, so not a big deal.  

31 minutes ago, capi3101 said:

Finished...finally. Wow, this turned out to be a lot more difficult than I thought...

 

https://imgur.com/a/7sXE39X

 

Assuming I haven't broken any rules and my math is correct, the total mission time for the Kerboat 7 was 12:56.

EDIT: Dammit - scratch. I didn't start from the east side of the hangar. Urg...well, it does give me an excuse to fix some of the noted shortcomings with the design.

Not a big deal. I'll put you on the leaderboard with a 4-second penalty, which is the most time you would have spent crossing that distance.

Edited October 12, 2018 by Klapaucius

[capi3101]

Okay, I can live with that quite happily.

[sturmhauke]

I have an entry, finally! Album: https://imgur.com/a/rjV0wpj Total run time is 8:06.

Spoiler

I have video also, but it needs to be cleaned up some.

[sturmhauke]

Here's the video.

 

[Klapaucius]

@sturmhauke.  Cool. I love your solution to the ladder height issue.

 

 

[sturmhauke]

I call it the Kneel Before Zod Maneuver.

[vyznev]

13 hours ago, sturmhauke said:

Here's the video.

Nice design!

I couldn't help but notice that you wasted a lot of time transitioning from sailing to climbing. Like, at least a minute. I bet if you moved your front wheels forward, or added an extra set of wheels on the nose, you could improve your time significantly. Maybe even enough to beat mystified's record.

Also, now I'm kind of curious about the little delta wings below the ends of your catamaran hulls. I'm sure they have some specific aero/hydrodynamical purpose, but I just can't quite figure out how they work. Enlighten me, please?

[sturmhauke]

15 minutes ago, vyznev said:

Nice design!

I couldn't help but notice that you wasted a lot of time transitioning from sailing to climbing. Like, at least a minute. I bet if you moved your front wheels forward, or added an extra set of wheels on the nose, you could improve your time significantly. Maybe even enough to beat mystified's record.

Also, now I'm kind of curious about the little delta wings below the ends of your catamaran hulls. I'm sure they have some specific aero/hydrodynamical purpose, but I just can't quite figure out how they work. Enlighten me, please?

Thanks! Yeah, that was a major time sink. I also made various driving errors that ate up time.

The winglets are hydrofoils; the ones on the front are advanced canards, and the ones on the back are fixed. They're all angled slightly (10 degree dihedral, 5 degree pitch), to lift the hull up slightly out of the water.

My first version of the craft didn't have the hydrofoils, and had a max speed of 60 m/s. I experimented with a few different hydrofoil designs before I settled on this one. A real boat would ride higher to avoid waves tossing the boat around, but KSP water mostly stays flat so I could get away with just barely lifting the hull up. Top safe(ish) speed is 100 m/s, which I didn't quite hit in this video. After that it gets unstable; the prow starts bouncing and eventually digs into the water, and things may break. The highest speed I got before that happened was 117 m/s.

[Georodin]

Trying to get a 1st batch here after ages
https://imgur.com/a/dfSPeR0
Could use a bit more LF at the End but did its job

[Klapaucius]

9 hours ago, Georodin said:

Trying to get a 1st batch here after ages
https://imgur.com/a/dfSPeR0
Could use a bit more LF at the End but did its job

Nice to see my old challenge resurrected!  Thanks for joining and collect your badge.  You are on the leaderboard and perhaps more will follow.

[FlipNascar]

On 7/9/2020 at 10:35 PM, Klapaucius said:

Nice to see my old challenge resurrected!  Thanks for joining and collect your badge.  You are on the leaderboard and perhaps more will follow.

I bit.

Took an old hydrofoil design I had, slapped some wheels on it and decided that thrust cures all issues (it didn't, hence the addition of a juno at the front to help with front end grip on the ascent, and the wheel bars to protect the engines), it's an exceptional hydrofoil, it is therefore a diabolical rover. 3m 39s to plant the flag.

 

 

Other images can be found here: https://imgur.com/a/OjhEXst

Craft file available upon request.

Tried to record using Quicktime, but it just seemed too much for the potato macbook I'm using. Jeb and another flag are up there from the previous run where quicktime didn't record.