building a medieval trebuchet
 

I've googled it dozens of times probably got about 15 pages in and have found nothing useful at all.

I keep seeing those little tiny ones that are like 1 foot high but I can't seem to find any plan on one a little large (around 4 and a half feet tall). I see some where you have to buy but I don't want to buy plans this thing is supposed to be cheap. So alas I ask here. How would you build a medieval trebuchet with no modern crap in it thats about 4 and a half feet tall?

Thanks for the help

My school just finished a trebuchet contest. I am talking huge ass trebuchets (one was lke 7 feet tall) and can launch a pumpkin several hundred feet.

They built one on an episode of Monster Garage. Try looking through their forums maybe you will get lucky and find a link.

http://www.ripcord.ws/

For my physics 111 class, we had to construct a trebuchet and use it to launch a cushioned egg. This is the website where we were able to find some designs and plans which we modified by making the pieces of wood wider to be more stable. Our trebuchet was roughly 5 feet tall when the swinging arm was not hooked into position.

I saw a special on one of the Learing Channels (or Discovery Channel) a few years ago... great show. Apparantly, it is very very difficult.

The show was basically 2 teams, first one to get it to work, got to launch rocks at a mock castle wall built to resemble a true wall...

That is so awesome. I have always wanted to build one of those...

There's a BBC documentary about them buiding a HUGE one. Big enough "shoot" a car a few hundred metres.

I'll see if I can dig up the references.

Mr Mephisto

This is not the one I meant, but it's similar.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lostempires/trebuchet/


Mr Mephisto

if you want to go really nutz, there is a maximum article with plans in it. the artricle deffiently appeared in the last 12 months, so it shouldnt be to hard to find.

Up near Rochester NY some Outdoor Center was using one to chuck pumpkins (around halloween). It had to launch them 50-75 yards. The pumpkins were paid for by customers and the two guys loaded the pumpkins and tried to hit a target about 75 yards away...All money went to a charity and they got quite a bit of local press. I bet you could find out about it by going online to area newspapers.

it's funny you guys mention this. A friend of mine came home from Iraq a few weeks ago and told me he and a few other officers had built one nearly large enough to launch a Hummer, though they settled for small cars. Guess that just goes to show you what the army does with our money...

Just out of curiosity, why do you need to build one??

It's not nessecary but how many people can say they have a trebuchet. It's really just to kill time and to see if I can actually do it.

My son and I just finished buliding the one that amonkie mentioned at ripcord.ws/plans/plans.html

We scaled it down to an 18" beam length, I ripped the pieces out of hardwood that measure 3/8 x 1/4 and we used a 4:1 beam ratio. It will throw a marble about 35 feet with a 16oz lead sinker. Some people in the physics class used weights up to five pounds and were able to throw a marble over 90 feet. Ours would have to be redesigned to use a larger weight.

Good luck with yours! It's a lot of fun

3 of my friends and i built one, because physics is boring and we need to apply ourselves somehow... Stood almost 20feet tall and here are the links to the video

http://physweb.mnstate.edu/phys200/PumpkinLaunch1.mpg
http://physweb.mnstate.edu/phys200/PumpkinLaunch2.mpg

only launched it about 150feet, next year, gas powered!

I saw that. Very exciting show actually.

I've also seen one that launches automobiles.

check with your local ren faire or S.C.A . group- they do this kind of thing all the time

Yep! I saw that too. Super cool stuff!

The thing that blew me away the most was... It turns out that it dramatically increases a trebuchet's power to have it on wheels. Affixing it to the ground has it waste some energy rocking and pushing against its moorings, whereas having it on wheels (on a track, hopefully) preserves that energy and puts it into arm rotation speed.