Hey all, over the past week or so i’ve been making a trebuchet. I tried it out for the first time today and it went quite well, i made a short video of it in action.
Any comments?
Careful, a friend of a friend of mine died in a trebuchet accident.
seriously?
Pretty cool… how does the sling know when to release?
on the end of the boom, there is a metal rod sticking out set at 5 degrees above horizontal, when the sling gets to a certain point in the arc it overtakes the boom and the end of the sling which is just hooked around the metal rod flies off because the pressure is pulling it off.
Can’t get the video to work.
In about 1984, I was the British Human Catapult champion. There was an “old time fayre” by the river Soar near Nottingham. The competitors were fired into the river from this big trebuchet-type catapult mounted on the back of a lorry. From memory, I think I flew 59’ (18 metres). I hit the bottom of the river and tore my (borrowed) wetsuit. The following year, I was invited to enter the human crossbow championship, being fired at inlated targets in the river. I politely declined. 
This is not one of my deliberate mistake puzzles. It is true.
This is not the actual one, but similar:
If you want a little more distance have it release a bit later. Also, you could hang your counterweight down a few feet you would get a better fling. I think…
Have you used this program? http://www.ripcord.ws/atreb/atreb.html It simulates a treb so you can play around with the variables without having to actually build it.
Very seriously. You try being flung 150 metres, peaking at 50m high, missing the net and not dying. I am pretty sure it was the one that Mikefule linked to, it was certainly in connection with the dangerous sports club.