Two Kings and Two Knights

One day a king and his queen gave birth to twin boys. Because they were both the king’s firstborn sons, the king promised them they would each get half of the kingdom when it was their turn to rule. The boys grew to men, the king grew old, and half of the kingdom was passed to each of the sons. For a long time the two kings ruled in what many considered to be a peaceful time. But then a time came when neither of the kings was happy only ruling half of the kingdom. One of the kings thought the kingdom shouldn’t have two rulers, it should only have one, and it should be him. The other king saw how his brother ruled, and thought he could do better for the citizens of his brother’s kingdom, as his own citizens seemed fairly happy. He thought everyone would be better off if there was just one good ruler for the whole kingdom. Neither of the kings wanted a war, so they agreed to meet and discuss the situation. After a short time, they came to an agreement. Each of the kings would have three days to choose a champion, a knight to fight on behalf of each of the kingdoms. The two champions would fight, and the winner would have his king rule the whole kingdom. Both the kings had already appointed their best knight as the head of their royal guard, so when they returned from the meeting, they began training their champions.

One of the kings decided he would hold tournaments. He would have everyone who wanted to fight to see if they could beat the head of the royal guard. Perhaps there was someone who could fight better on his behalf. One day passed and no one was able to beat the champion. The second day passed and no one was able to beat the champion. Both the kings had trained to fight since they were boys, and often fought against one another. A lifetime of training against each other had made the kings excellent fighters, so on the third day, the king fought the champion himself. And the king won.

Meanwhile, the other king started to train his champion. He brought him into the throneroom, a vast open space, and he had everyone else leave. The king spoke, “My brother and I are the best fighters in the land. Our father taught us everything he knew, he had the best knights in the land train us, and we constantly fought each other to train, so that if the time ever came, we could protect the kingdom. My brother knows this too, so what we need is someone better than me or him, and that someone is going to be you.”

The knight asked, “How could that be, if you and your brother are the best fighters in the land?”

The king answered, “You’re going to beat me. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but by the third day, you will beat me. You’re a good fighter, but you’re not me or my brother. So I’m going to fight you until you beat me. Then you’ll be the best fighter in the land.”

So they started fighting. The king didn’t hold back; he showed the knight every way that he was better: everything he learned from his father, the other knights who trained him, and everything he learned from fighting his brother. The knight took a good beating, and at the end of it, the king had the knight pinned down with his foot on the knight’s neck. “This is how my brother would always win.” said the king. “I was never able to get up from this, so tomorrow the only thing you’re going to do is figure out a way to get out of it.” The king and the knight retired for the evening and got a good night’s sleep.

The next morning, the king and the knight started early. At the very beginning the king pinned the knight down with his foot, just like he did the day before, and said, “This is all we’re doing today. You can go eat or rest at any time, but you have to get yourself out from under my foot.” They were there for hours. The knight tried all kinds of ways to get out from under the king’s foot. He tired himself out, but the king still didn’t let go, so the knight just laid there on the floor, with the king’s foot on his neck, waiting to regain his strength so he could try some more. The knight realized that when he was exhausted, the king would loosen the grip on his neck a little, so he got an idea. He tried another round of escapes, getting close with some attempts, but still not getting out from under the king’s foot. He laid there sweating and panting heavily, clearly exhausted, or so the king thought. The knight had been carefully saving his strength, so when the king loosened his grip on his neck because of how exhausted the knight looked, he could be ready to try to escape again as hard as he could. It worked. The king was caught by surprise, and the knight was able to get out from under his foot. And because the king was caught by surprise, the knight was able to keep fighting and managed to put the king under his foot. “Now you’re ready.” said the king.

The third day came for both the kings, and they each sent out their champion. The one king who had spent the last two days carefully training his champion sent him out with confidence into the arena. The other king, there with his champion, spoke up. “I will be the one fighting oh behalf of my own kingdom.” Everyone was taken by surprise, but the other knight was still ready. 

The king and the knight fought for some time. They were well matched and neither of them held the upper hand for long. That was until the king managed to pin the knight under his foot, just like the other king said he would. Because they had been fighting for a long time, they were both sweaty and breathing heavily, but the knight had been careful to only use what strength he needed. The knight did all he could do to look exhausted, and while the king was taking his time preparing to take the final blow, that’s when the knight took him by surprise and managed to put the king under his foot. And with the king pinned down, the knight didn’t hesitate at all to show that he had won.

Landslide

I used to build remote-controlled machines, primarily wheeled or tracked vehicles, out of LEGO Technic. One of my most recently but most extensively developed projects has been what I’ve called the Landslide Project. Plastic LEGO tread links for tracked vehicles have terrible traction, and thus are very poorly optimized for that with which tracked vehicles generally demonstrate a clear advantage: challenging terrain. To get around this, the idea came to me one day to attach small rubber wheels as grippy knobs along the tracks to produce a vehicle with what traction would be appropriate to a tracked vehicle. I built the modified treads, and threw together a simple motorized frame to power them. They worked wonderfully. The treads had no issue finding purchase on rough terrain, outdoors in grass, on rocks, dirt, gravel, and even in artificially challenging environments. The vehicle as a whole, however, was woefully underdeveloped. 

Because the treads yielded an unprecedented amount of traction, turning the skid steer tracked vehicle often required more power than what the original vehicle was capable of producing. The center of gravity was good, but could be better. It could be less inclined to topple when climbing steep inclines, for example. And it was too low to the ground, susceptible to small obstacles along the path of travel. I kept the treads, redesigned the entire chassis, put the treads back on, and continued testing. 

I kept testing it on the harshest terrain I could find. I lived near a construction site of sorts at the time, so there was no shortage of loose, rocky dirt in small to large mounds to really give my machine a run for its money. I also tested it climbing over cinder blocks, and in grass where the blades might get caught in the cogwork. And I made sure it fell. I dropped it, ran it off of ledges, and just generally sent it into the ground. Having something hit the ground is how you really learn what’s solid and what’s not. If you drop it over and over again on different parts of the thing and on different surfaces, it doesn’t take long to know exactly what’s always solid, what always fails, and what just needs a bit of work. 

Version 2 failed most of my tests, as I tried to have it do. So I made a version 3. Kept the treads, and completely redesigned the chassis again. Version 3 was a bit more experimental than a legitimate attempt at a good version; I optimized for ground clearance on Version 3, as that was a main issue with Version 2. Usually when optimizing for ground clearance though, making sure things aren’t hanging low, you raise your center of gravity. Version 3 had a wildly high center of gravity, so it failed any test where it was made remotely unstable, but I showed how the concept could work with better ground clearance. Kept the treads. Redesigned the chassis. Version 4.

All the previous versions had power issues when it came to turning. Because the tracks were so grippy, there was an enormous amount of resistance when moving the machine in anything other than a straight line. That was a consequence of the treads themselves, and those were the concept I was pursuing, so I implemented the only viable solution: more power. I extended the tracks, pushing them to the limit of what my collection could construct. That allowed for 50% more power, and in addition to a slower but higher-torque gear train, it made Version 4 able to hold its own while turning on even the grippiest of surfaces. Version 4 had good ground clearance, while managing to keep the center of gravity respectively low. I knew I had something good with Version 4. But I wasn’t satisfied. I hadn’t seen it do what the other version couldn’t. So I took it outside.

I dropped it and ran it off ledges again. It held together. When it didn’t land back on its treads, the rollcage I built for it made sure everything stayed as it should; the electronics remained untouched, the mechanics were still aligned, and the chassis was still in one piece. I ran it through loose dirt, gravel, bigger rocks, cinder blocks, grass, packed dirt, leaves. It kept on trucking, even when I turned it around to have it come back. I always tried to have it get back to me on its own whenever I had pushed it far enough to be satisfied. I ran it up a steep hill of loose dirt and rocks of varying sizes, with a little dip in the hill just to make sure things weren’t too easy. It moved without any issue up the sharp incline on the loose earth. It made it to the dip in the hill, I had it readjust itself, struggling a bit, but ultimately resituating it so that it could continue up the hill, still roughly 45 degrees or more. It didn’t care. It kept going, and it made it to the top of the hill. And only with that did I feel comfortable telling myself I had made something good. Something that did what I set out to have it be able to do.