School Trebuchet Project

[cardist]

Hello Friends,
I have been rather busy of late. I entered my engineering class into an inter-schools competition for designing and building a medieval trebuchet. They subsequently won said competition and one of there prizes was to take part in a medieval re-enactment, with their siege engine, at the Bruce Festival in Dunfermline. Great fun was had by all and the crowds were mightily impressed!
Shown below are the engine in action and my Young Engineers with The Bruce's army and myself kneeling in the middle.
All the best
Bernie

[Leif Ohlsson]

And you were using what for ammunition - watermelons? What a sight that must have been. Beats CSI, I'm sure (isn't that where they shoot a watermelon to smithereens in the introduction?). - L.

[cardist]

Absolutely right Leif! They made a most satisfying splat when they landed, to the utter enjoyment of the crowd.
B

[thorst]

That's a neat looking trebuchet! What was it's throw distance?

I've built one about ten years ago, too, but it was not nearly that size. It must be very impressive to see yours in action!

Great post!

Thorsten

[SCEtoAUX]

Looks like a hoot.
Trebuchets are fun to build and use. I have not built one that could throw a watermelon, but have built a few small ones from cardstock and wood. There was a site with plans for a tennis ball trebuchet but it is no longer online. Wayback Machines does not seem to help either.
The plans can still be acquired from here:
Team Urban Siege | Tennis Ball Trebuchet

[Vermin_King]

That is way too cool for a school project. I have to ask about your symbolism of the rubber chicken with a pair of large ears duct taped to the trebuchet, though. An attention-getter, but how did it come to be?

[cardist]

SCEtoAUX; Thanks for the link. This will come in handy for my Junior-School project.

Thorsten; The range was about 50m with the configuration and ballast on the day. Not much considering the size, but we had to keep within the bounds of the park for safety reasons.

Vermin_King; The rubber chicken and ears were just a joke by the lads. They wanted to 'Christen' it and so sacrificed the chicken for luck. Their comments were "this is going to get people asking all sorts of stuff". It certainly was an attention-grabber!

Thanks folks

Bernie

[ringmaster]

For the rest of us.
Trebuchet ...siege weapon catapult castle fort free card model 12th 13th 14th 15th 16th century armaments

[SCEtoAUX]

Ringmaster, I have built a few of those card stock trebuchets. Easy to build because of the way the parts are presented. The attachment of one part to another is clearly indicated.
180 g counterweight works good.