Trebuchets

Started by jeh25, July 08, 2003, 10:18:48 AM

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jeh25

I could have sworn there was a 5 or 10 year old Scientific American issue that gave complete plans on how to build a Trebuchet. In trying to find it, I came across some other interesting stuff, namely a page at howthingswork.com and a set of plans for a portable working trebuchet.  Also, if remember the story correctly, Ganderson's frat at MIT actually designed a trebuchet large enough to launch a pledge across the Charles from Back Bay onto campus but abandoned the plan when they discovered nobody in the house knew how to pack the parachute they had acquired.

Anyway, here are the links if anyone cares:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/question127.htm

This one throws 1 kg stones 100 meters...
http://members.iinet.net.au/~rmine/Greycos/trebfil4.html

This one will throw a 16 lbs bowling ball 135 yards...whoa
http://www.ripcord.ws/miketreb/Eecks.html

And yes, I did find the Scientific American article from 1995
http://www.mazingo.net/sites/Scientific_American_Demo/1482380.pdf

Pedantically yours,

John

Cornell '98 '00; Yale 01-03; UConn 03-07; Brown 07-09; Penn State faculty 09-
Work is no longer an excuse to live near an ECACHL team... :(

Greg Berge

One of the history of tech  shows on TLC covered trebuchets and siege engines, as well.  The attacking force used them to hurl sick animals over the besieged city's walls -- 13th century WMD.



Post Edited (07-08-03 11:27)

Jeff Hopkins \'82

On Junkyard Wars they used them to hurl cabbages at paper castles.

jtwcornell91

Hey, speaking of mechanized competition, that reminds me...  Last weekend in Padova I ran into a guy from Cornell Engineering's entry in the RoboCup, which is an international soccer tournament with teams of autonomous robots.  (Autonomous from the humans; they're apparently all controlled by a central computer.)  Several of the teams were staying in my hotel, judging from the t-shirts I saw at breakfast.

http://robocup.mae.cornell.edu/

Cool stuff.


Greg Berge


ugarte

Is it necessary to designate your subject [OT] when the original topic is trebuchets?