Building a Trebuchet

UPDATED VIDEO ON POST 38


A bunch of friends and I started a club at school called SETAS (Society for Engineering Technology and Applied Sciences), and for our first major project, decided to build a trebuchet. Here's some pictures of the build so far.

Feel free to give any suggestions. We plan to have it finished within this coming month.



Here's the first side, with plywood gussets.




First side up


Installing second side


Friend standing between assembled sides for size comparison.


An inch too tall to fit in the garage


Size comparison in relation to my truck

 

I can only see this ending badly... watermelon thru a window comes to mind

 

FRIGGIN SWEET...Napoleon Dynamite! Did you get his autograph??

 

This would be a catapult, for the intellectually challenged. Keep the pics coming, looks good.

 

awesome.

 

It will be a trebuchet in the end. A trebuchet uses counterweight, while a catapult uses tension

 

Thank you guys for the clarification. My dumb ass was about to ask wtf a trebuchet was. You learn something new everyday.

 

Thats exactly what i was thinking!! which made me think of this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK8byQsugFw
just replace the bike and ramp with a trebuchet and projectile

 

I can get it for ya. With the TW discount, you can have it for $90. I'll cover shipping.

 

"oh boy is this great!"

-flounder

 

I have made a few in the past, but nothing that big..... yet. What do you plan on using for a trigger?

Also, plan on getting a small electric winch to help cock that thing. Gonna take a lot of weight!

 

We built five of these as a "team building exercise" at our last corporate retreat. Smaller scale but we were able to have teams and shoot at each other. I'll see if I can dig up pics. Best part, at the end they drew names and I scored one. I haven't reassembled it more out of concern for my neighbors' safety than anything else.

 

I'm the guy in the middle.

 

Awesome! we built one at my old unit and launched pumpkins with grenade sims in them....epic.

 

About that trigger- probably a set up of two or three eye screws, where one is mounted to the arm and the other is on an extension/in the ground. The arm will be lowered to where the 'eyes' line up, and a pin will be placed through. Then it simply needs to be pulled, from a safe distance.

And the winch - we haven't quite figured that out yet. That's a good idea though. Unfortunately we're on a pretty tight budget. We got all of the lumber donated to us, which was an awesome gesture from the company. We'll probably end up having all of us pull on a rope simultaneously. If that doesn't work, we'll use my truck.

 

Looks good man. How much counterweight? How heavy was the projectile? Distance travelled?

 

Haha that's great. How far did they go?

 

Here's some updated pictures of the progress so far. This is where the arm will be (approximately)

 

IIRC it was 25lbs??? I think it was two 10s and a 5 weight. we were launching softballs over 100 yards when they would actually go. We could adjust fulcrum location and the way the slings released. we got every thing from 326 ft to damn near straight up and down. I need to get in my garage and dig out the parts. Try and get you a trigger pic, too.