trebuchet, anyone?

[Hughman]

Fire one!
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid147/p66b50cfaabb4f228ca8c4410abbbe341/f63655fd.jpg

Fire two!
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid147/p751be6808566797cbab1b0be32646ce1/f6365600.jpg

Ammo: silver bullets!
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid147/pa9b572663426a81189586876ee2dda8c/f6365603.jpg

[Bruce Hooke]

:D :eek:

[ahp]

GReat, a modern Medeavalist. Where do these people excercise these things?

[gert]

ya gotta find an old piano...

[Garrett Lowell]

Originally posted by gert:
ya gotta find an old piano...And, if you do, just snatch off those little black keys and send them to me before you launch.

[Beowolf]

My kids build trebuchets in the winter. They aren't nearly as large (1mx1mx1m in the ready to launch position) but some of them yield some fairly impressive results. One built last year was capable of launching a 40 gram bean bag over 45 meters with a 6 kg countermass. You didn't want to be in its way!

Jeff

[Hughman]

This was to be a measured contest between the classes at the local high school. The scorekeeper, remembering the results from the last two years, brought a 300 foot tape measure.

The first shots from all three entries blasted through the woods at the far end of the field.

Someone asked what was on the other side of the trees...

"Oh, just the elementary school...." :D

[imported_Steven Bauer]

This is a very fancy treb I saw down at Southern Maine Comunity College. I hope these guys got an A, 'cause they deserved one.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid147/pd006804035f9d0ef25d046ad97b55d22/f635491e.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid147/pa256f6dbea3218b3bf0126e81ce6612c/f635492d.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid147/p00023c2c2895ce4ad2b67b45757e87c1/f635491a.jpg

And here's the best part. It's aimed at the main shipping channel into Portland!

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid147/p75bf7140c805ecf2b8d84a844c63fed2/f6354921.jpg

Steven

[ 11-19-2004, 07:07 PM: Message edited by: Steven Bauer ]

[Victor]

Mordor used catapaults, Gondor used trebouchets.

[Wild Wassa]

The Lake Ginninderra Sea Scouts make these things fairly regularly. They are very funny when they work well. The Scouts have been known to fire waterbombs halfway across Lake Ginninderra (if you know the lake?) ... it is a real hoot and a good deal of fun, always.

Warren.

[ 11-24-2004, 12:31 AM: Message edited by: Wild Wassa ]

[Dave Lesser]

For a fascinating look at the trebuchet, check out this PBS Video (http://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.jsp?productId=1404088#)

Fifty carpenters worked day and night to create the fourteenth century version of the atom bomb: the trebuchet--a fearsome, gravity-powered catapult dubbed "Warwolf" that was capable of hurling boulders, bee hives and plague-infected corpses long distances.

[Victor]

As you all know, someone in Britain was firing people until someone was killed recently. And pianos, and small cars.

[Joe Dupere]

Cool, more trebuchets in Maine!! There are probably enough for an annual competition now.

One of my hobbies is medieval re-enacting. Just down the Penobscot River is Fort Knox, a Civil War era stone fort. They hold a fund raiser in the fall with a medieval tournament theme and we show up to help. There's a man who comes with a monster trebuchet and sets it up by the waterfront. They use pumpkins for ammo and fling them out into the river. One year somebody across the harbor in Bucksport got the bright idea to get in their boat and see what was going on. The trebuchet crew had just launched a pretty big pumpkin when he came zipping out from behind a bigger boat and headed into the impact zone. There wasn't really much anybody could do to stop anything, he couldn't see the crew, they couldn't see him, we could see everything but had no way to communicate. They just missed him. Soaked him pretty good though!

Now we've got a spotter and two way radios to make sure there are no targets of opportunity to tempt the treb crew. :D

The engineering in these things is pretty fascinating and the power is incredible. If you ever get a chance to see one up close you'll be inpressed.

There's also a smaller one we bring that'll fling apples about a hundred yards or so. The kids really like that one.

Joe

[NormMessinger]

One of the woodworking magazines I have has plans for a small one, maybe two feet high. If anyone is interested I'll see if I can find it. It would be just the thing for those little punkins.

[Ron Williamson]

My kid and I built a one-bungee catapult a few weeks ago.It will gently toss a golf ball about 40 feet.Just enough to be fun and not too scary.
R

[gert]

I have decided to build this one http://andy.trebuchet.com/trebuchet_plans.htm as a Christmas gift for a friend at green lake
How ever its gonna be a table top version, I'm using the imperial dimensions as metric ( 25" = 25cm) this makes it about 1/4 scale. Got it about 1/3 done in just a few hours because these particular plans are well detailed

[ 11-25-2004, 10:19 AM: Message edited by: gert ]