Unappreciated Genius Challenge

[Klapaucius]

 

 

Somewhere in that gray matter is a brilliant idea waiting to get out. Perhaps you have already created it but your peers just don't have your intellectual acumen and fail to see its promise.  The world is full of such inventions, as this article shows: https://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/11/tech/gallery/absurd-inventions-mental-floss/index.html)

 

Your mission is to come up with a plane, rocket/lander, rover or other (4 categories).  It has to solve a problem in a unique way or serve a purpose nobody knew needed serving.  It may actually (and probably should) be completely pointless, but you cannot admit that. You must justify yourself before your peers. It must, however, work--even if poorly.  Stock and DLC parts only, just to impose some limitations (which usually inspire more creativity).

 

I was inspired to create this challenge after participating in @Chequers Orbit Boot Camp challenge.  I was trying to figure out a way to save on engines, and realized that I could keep the same engine all the way to orbit if I staged my fuel tanks from the top down.  Ultimately, the idea led to this beast--which should give an idea of the mindset needed for this challenge:

 

 

 

Edited April 20, 2020 by Klapaucius

[Superfluous J]

I have no ideas for entries, but another engine-saving technique is to use inline decouplers with crossfeed enabled, with fuel tanks attached radially to them. The engines will happily burn through the hole in the middle of the decoupler.

[Pds314]

5 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

I have no ideas for entries, but another engine-saving technique is to use inline decouplers with crossfeed enabled, with fuel tanks attached radially to them. The engines will happily burn through the hole in the middle of the decoupler.

I used this for a 2-tonne caveman Tylo lander.

[TheFlyingKerman]

I built this refueling rover, that uses airbrakes to raise and level, so that it can actually dock on the uneven surface of another planet.

[mystifeid]

You saw the stripped down version in the AIRS challenge but the original is still my favorite thing. It was used for a polar circumnavigation of Kerbin for which an amphibious vehicle is essential.

On the water it is a pretty ugly boat but at 50m/s it has a range of more than 300km. It can climb near vertical inclines such as those guarding the polar icecaps from the sea and when given the right conditions can travel reasonably fast. Drills, a small ISRU and RTG's make it self-sufficient.

Spoiler

 

 

 

[vyznev]

I guess this counts as an excuse to trawl through my old forum posts for some of the crazy contraptions I've posted here before, like:

• a rocket with a helicopter as its first stage (built before BG came out),
• a one meter tall Tylo lander,
• a five-part LF only SSTO (flies half of the ascent backwards),
• a gyroplane (that's really hard to fly),
• a kerbal diving bell for planting flags underwater (plus a pointless torture device),
• a method of toggling Sepratron thrust on and off using elevons (for orbital rendezvous and docking using only solid fueled rockets),
• and what's probably my most prized piece of underappreciated silliness so far: an airplane that can fly upside down, backwards and sideways (and any combination of these).

(Quite appropriately, that last one was made for your own earlier challenge. So thank you for the inspiration. )

[Klapaucius]

9 hours ago, mystifeid said:

You saw the stripped down version in the AIRS challenge but the original is still my favorite thing. It was used for a polar circumnavigation of Kerbin for which an amphibious vehicle is essential.

On the water it is a pretty ugly boat but at 50m/s it has a range of more than 300km. It can climb near vertical inclines such as those guarding the polar icecaps from the sea and when given the right conditions can travel reasonably fast. Drills, a small ISRU and RTG's make it self-sufficient.

  Hide contents

 

 

 

This is genius but I am not sure it qualifies. It is way too useful. 

4 hours ago, vyznev said:

I guess this counts as an excuse to trawl through my old forum posts for some of the crazy contraptions I've posted here before, like:

• a rocket with a helicopter as its first stage (built before BG came out),
• a one meter tall Tylo lander,
• a five-part LF only SSTO (flies half of the ascent backwards),
• a gyroplane (that's really hard to fly),
• a kerbal diving bell for planting flags underwater (plus a pointless torture device),
• a method of toggling Sepratron thrust on and off using elevons (for orbital rendezvous and docking using only solid fueled rockets),
• and what's probably my most prized piece of underappreciated silliness so far: an airplane that can fly upside down, backwards and sideways (and any combination of these).

(Quite appropriately, that last one was made for your own earlier challenge. So thank you for the inspiration. )

Re the any direction plane. You owned that challenge. I have a feeling there were so few entries because no one could best that.

That solid fuel docking is impressive. I was building a solid only SSTO last night, and have several sizes of engines, but I had not thought of blocking exhaust.  I did have an idea for using Breaking Ground swivels to adjust thrust....hmmmm.

 

 

[Laie]

Once I found myself capturing a hefty asteroid with as little spacecraft as I could get away with. Well, capture was the easy part -- there's no problem doing two-hour burns while you're out beyond Minmus. But how to get it down into a low circular orbit?

With 40mm/s² acceleration (in the more common notation, that amounts to a TWR of 0.004), the usual approach would no longer do. I carry my avatar for a reason, but even I balk at the prospect of doing over 200 passes through periapsis. Even more so as the vessel was also short on torque -- getting it pointed into the right direction after dropping out of warp would take so long that one starts to think twice about going into timewarp in the first place.

So, the only workable (I dare not say practical) solution was to figure out how to spiral into a low orbit in a continuous maneuver.

This is just a visualization. Actually it was one done in one single burn lasting more than ten hours.  Nothing special about the vessel design here, but quite some R&D went into the autopilot.

Edited April 30, 2020 by Laie

[Klapaucius]

Here is my own entry, just completed.  A solid rocket VTOL. Thrust is controlled by angling it.  It works better in lower gravity  environments. On Kerbin the flights are short and it is very twitchy.  You need to change the thrust limiter for each different gravity environment.  I set it at just over 1.

 

[purpleivan]

I've got a lot of pretty pointless acts of craziness to choose from, but the one I'm posting is the good ship Kitchen Sink. Which was made as a possible replacement of the Coastal Cruise that I was using in my Kerbin Sorta-Circumnavigation.

In the end it showed up as just a cheese induced fever dream of Bob and wasn't used to sail around the planet.

So here she is.

It carried a rover.

A minisub (a part mod was used to control buoyancy on something this small).

Plus a pair of mini jets.

All vehicles could be detached, dived/driven/flown, then docked again to sail on to the next action packed location.

Edited April 18, 2020 by purpleivan

[dnbattley]

While I'm probably in danger of cementing a reputation as "the kraken guy", my most proud achievement is the "spider pig" mechanism for using the kraken force to greatly increase a vehicle's adhesion to a surface - even against gravity, and allowing "parking" as well as driving donuts on the VAB.

 

EDITED JUSTIFICATION:

It is well known that there are a limited number of parking spaces at the KSC. Despite rarely seeing any cars driving around, a strict hierarchy system means that the top brass have reserved all the best spaces, leaving the overworked control room staff to park their cars several miles off site, and take a bus in. Pilots are also part of this scheme, though they are allowed to take one of the available staff cars.

Several memos have been sent reminding some of the pilots (yes, you Jebediah!) to stop taking short cuts through the SPH when they are running late!

As a result, Werner has been working on some physics bending solutions to increase the number of available car ports, including the available walls. More recently, however, there have been rumours of Jeb taking advantage of this new opportunity and running donuts on the side of the building.

Spoiler

 

 

Separately, I'm quite proud of the work I did in researching engine/fuel cost-efficiency for the entertainingly shaped and named "Pleasuredome" which was a challenge to get to Laythe as cheaply as possible: specifically creating engine plate combinations of (usually) kodiaks and bobcats with the AD-TP fuel tank to provide both cheaper and more effective solutions than their weight-class alternatives (including beating the venerable twin-boar in a straight head-to-head on thrust, cost and dV).

 

EDITED JUSTIFICATION:

Are funds getting tight? Do you still want to go to Laythe? If the answer is yes then why not grab The PleasureDome(TM) for your space exploration pleasure. Turn heads in all departments except the beancounters' office now!

Spoiler

Edited April 23, 2020 by dnbattley
typo

[dnbattley]

3 hours ago, purpleivan said:

A minisub (a part mod was used to control buoyancy on something this small).

Love this! It may be possible to control buoyancy in stock using the not-rockomax node and inflatable airlocks...

[sevenperforce]

3 hours ago, dnbattley said:

Love this! It may be possible to control buoyancy in stock using the not-rockomax node and inflatable airlocks...

IIRC, the 1.25-m service bay works well for this. With the doors open its collision box is larger and so it displaces more liquid. With the right choice of internal ballast it can provide positive or negative buoyancy on an action group.

[swjr-swis]

On 4/17/2020 at 3:32 AM, Klapaucius said:

Somewhere in that gray matter is a brilliant idea waiting to get out. Perhaps you have already created it but your peers just don't have you intellectual acumen and fail to see its promise.  (The world is full of such inventions, as this article shows: https://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/11/tech/gallery/absurd-inventions-mental-floss/index.html)

Your mission is to come up with a plane, rocket/lander, rover or other (4 categories).  It has to solve a problem in a unique way or serve a purpose nobody knew needed serving.  It may actually be completely pointless, but you cannot admit that. You must justify yourself before your peers. It must however, work, even if poorly.  Stock and DLC parts only, just to impose some limitations (which usually inspire more creativity).

I find this a very difficult challenge to respond to. Not so much because of any alleged lack of intellectual brilliance, naturally - it is my innate and almost insurmountable humility that constantly stands in the way of any attempt at marketing my clearly underappreciated inventions. Since however you make so vehement an argument in favour of inflicting my genius upon this audience, I find myself out of excuses. I shall thus elaborate.

 

Kerbalkind has been testing new contraptions of various degrees of land, sea, sky and/or space-worthiness since World-First Record-Keeping Society's first record-keeping efforts lured the ancestral orange-clad heroes out of their societal distancing. Traditionally this has always been achieved through the brave and unending efforts and sacrifice of those brave few kerbals who would volunteer their very existence towards this noble cause.

Many, many kerbals have paid the ultimate price in pursuit of science and achievements to impart on us such magnificent pearls of infinite wisdom as 'We should always check our staging before launch' (statistics say, we most probably didn't), 'We probably didn't use enough struts to sufficiently rigidify this contraption' (not a matter of statistics so much as an almost mathematical certainty), and 'It might not be wise to rely on parachutes to land safely on an airless body' (didn't we already learn the answer to this one from -several- previous excursions? yes, yes we did).

Observing the continuous kerbal plight of putting life and limb on the line in the pursuit of craft design perfection, and after relentless pleading from local insurance companies, I decided to put my considerable intellectual prowess to work on finding an alternative to the kerbal test pilot. Only pure stock parts would do, of course, while keeping proportions, mass and deformation characteristics as close to the original as possible. Thus and without further ado, FakeJeb Yourstruly Inc (aka FYI) presents: The Kerbal Stunt Dummy (Mk 2)

Unfortunately this forum no longer allows the embedded album format the advertorial for the FYI KTD2 was originally designed for, so I can only ask interested parties to follow this external link to fully experience our marketing efforts for this magnificent and verifiably indispensable product: Please click here for the full imgur album. Please click NOW.

Edited April 20, 2020 by swjr-swis
Rearranging the necklace

[linuxgurugamer]

24 minutes ago, swjr-swis said:

I find this a very difficult challenge to respond to. Not so much because of any alleged lack of intellectual brilliance, naturally - it is my innate and almost insurmountable humility that constantly stands in the way of any attempt at marketing my clearly underappreciated inventions. Since however you make so vehement an argument in favour of inflicting my genius upon this audience, I find myself out of excuses. I shall thus elaborate.

 

Kerbalkind has been testing new contraptions of various degrees of land, sea, sky and/or space-worthiness since World-First Record-Keeping Society's first record-keeping efforts lured the ancestral orange-clad heroes out of their societal distancing. Traditionally this has always been achieved through the brave and unending efforts and sacrifice of those brave few kerbals who would volunteer their very existence towards this noble cause.

Many, many kerbals have paid the ultimate price in pursuit of science and achievements to impart on us such magnificent pearls of infinite wisdom as 'We should always check our staging before launch' (statistics say, we most probably didn't), 'We probably didn't use enough struts to sufficiently rigidify this contraption' (not a matter of statistics so much as an almost mathematical certainty), and 'It might not be wise to rely on parachutes to land safely on an airless body' (didn't we already learn the answer to this one from -several- previous excursions? yes, yes we did).

Observing the continuous kerbal plight of putting life and limb on the line in the pursuit of craft design perfection, and after relentless pleading from local insurance companies, I decided to put my considerable intellectual prowess to work on finding an alternative to the kerbal test pilot. Only pure stock parts would do, of course, while keeping proportions, mass and deformation characteristics as close to the original as possible. Thus and without further ado, FakeJeb Yourstruly Inc (aka FYI) presents: The Kerbal Stunt Dummy (Mk 2)

 

Unfortunately this forum no longer allows the embedded album format the advertorial for the FYI KTD2 was originally designed for, so I can only ask interested parties to follow this external link to fully experience our marketing efforts for this magnificent and verifiably indispensable product: Please click here for the full imgur album. Please click NOW.

Nice!

[Klapaucius]

55 minutes ago, swjr-swis said:

Observing the continuous kerbal plight of putting life and limb on the line in the pursuit of craft design perfection, and after relentless pleading from local insurance companies, I decided to put my considerable intellectual prowess to work on finding an alternative to the kerbal test pilot. Only pure stock parts would do, of course, while keeping proportions, mass and deformation characteristics as close to the original as possible. Thus and without further ado, FakeJeb Yourstruly Inc (aka FYI) presents: The Kerbal Stunt Dummy (Mk 2)

I think yours is the first response that actually got the point of the challenge. I love it!

The cubicles gave me a good laugh this morning.

Edited April 20, 2020 by Klapaucius

[sturmhauke]

I made a washing machine lander and delivered it to Minmus a while back.

[swjr-swis]

1 hour ago, sturmhauke said:

I made a washing machine lander

I need to see your marketing pitch for this one.

Seriously.

[Klapaucius]

6 hours ago, swjr-swis said:

I need to see your marketing pitch for this one.

Seriously.

@sturmhauke  He is correct. Part of the challenge is justifying yourself.

[sturmhauke]

It was originally done for this challenge, which apparently no one else entered:

OK, so here's the pitch, which I totally didn't just make up on the spot right now. Ahem.

"You all know the famous line, 'If they can make a washing machine fly, my Jimmy can land it.' Well, we here at Sturmhauke Aerospace Industries did, and he did. Er, Jeb did. We're not really sure who this Jimmy fellow is. At any rate, if we can land a washing machine land on Minmus, we can make your crazy vision a reality. Like Jeb likes to say, 'If you shoot for the Mun and miss, you might still hit Minmus.' Don't miss Minmus, hit us with your business."

[dnbattley]

5 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

@sturmhauke  He is correct. Part of the challenge is justifying yourself

I would argue that the need for more than a cursory explanation of what one created was unclear from your original post/instructions/example, and your "this is the first post that got the point" was a somewhat disheartening message to send, but with this additional information I will add to mine when I have a chance.

[Klapaucius]

19 hours ago, dnbattley said:

I would argue that the need for more than a cursory explanation of what one created was unclear from your original post/instructions/example, and your "this is the first post that got the point" was a somewhat disheartening message to send, but with this additional information I will add to mine when I have a chance.

My apologies. That comment came out harsher than I meant it to be. My point was, and I probably did not make this clear enough, was that I was aiming for silly and fairly pointless.  Several of the entries are crazy, innovative and amazing, but they actually serve a purpose.  Flying washing machines and solid VTOLs are solutions to problems no one needed to solve.

 

As for the explanation: I was just looking for some creative comic justification. A lot of the posters here and on KerbalX have a way with words, and it is enjoyable to read their wit.

[dnbattley]

13 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

My apologies. <snip> A lot of the posters here and on KerbalX have a way with words, and it is enjoyable to read their wit.

No problem: I've made some edits above - hopefully more in keeping with the spirit intended. Sadly I don't think I'm one of the "lot" with "a way with words", but you can be the judge of that...

[Klapaucius]

22 minutes ago, dnbattley said:

No problem: I've made some edits above - hopefully more in keeping with the spirit intended. Sadly I don't think I'm one of the "lot" with "a way with words", but you can be the judge of that...

The parking justification is brilliant!

[xendelaar]

TLDR: I made a chopper with a adjustable centre of lift so that I can adjust it when the fuel tanks get empty. It works pretty well! 

Long story

Maybe this is nothing spectacular, but I made a SSTO Helicopter that's has the ability to fly on kerbin and Duna. On Duna the fuel tanks need to be empty in order to fly. There is just too little lift to carry a 130 tonne craft into the air. 

The problem I had was that the centre of gravity of the vessel was different when the craft is empty. This made flying really unpractical! So I managed to make the the centre of lift adjustable using a piston! 

I actually made this vessel for another challenge. I also made a clip of the mission ((5:00) if anybody is interested)...

Spoiler

 

 

 

Edited April 28, 2020 by xendelaar