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Fling-A-Keg

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the toys-for-grownups dept.

dave weekly writes: "Ever play Age of Empires and wonder at the trebuchets and catapults and what it would be like to launch them? Well, a bunch of medieval history and mechanical engineering geeks at Siege Engine decided to piece together several launching apparatuses and, for the benefit of the History Channel, flung kegs, pumpkins, and watermelons hundreds of feet all day long. The page also has pictures of a bunch of other sweet launchers, including air cannons."

4 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. Re:PBS... by heliocentric · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The best thing I got from that show was that the catapults on wheels worked the best. The reason was their counter wight was able to fall in a straighter line towards the center of the Eather, rather than the arc created on a fixed leg catapult. If you watch one on wheels fire, it will shimmy back and forth, but watch the weight in reference to another object (like a tree on the horizon) and you'll notice it very closely falls in a straight line... At the time I didn't think a free rolling catapult would work better, but now that I understand why it just seems so obvious. In any event, that PBS show was great!!!

    --
    Wheeeee
  2. Torsion ballista by Decimal+Dave · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Trebuchets? Onagers? Bah... These people have build a full-scale Roman ballista using a dual-torsion palintone design. It's effectively a giant mechanical cannon. Fun for the whole neighborhood!

    --

    "Leave the strategizing to those of us with planet-sized brains." -Tycho
  3. My trebuchet by MxTxL · · Score: 2, Interesting
    In my high school physics class we were tasked with a project to construct an egg launcher. The idea was that the 5 or 6 groups were to build some apparatus for flinging an egg out 20 feet and hit a man-sized target.... well, actually, we were supposed to hit the teacher, who was really cool, that would stand 20 feet away in perfect confidence that no one had the aim to hit him.

    The other groups were doing things with surgical tubing making slingshots and whatnot. My group modeled our launcher after a trebuchet. Actually, the device I had in mind I saw on 'Northern Exposure' that was powered by a truck that would pull a line and swing a huge arm around and fling a piano about 300 feet or so.

    The device we ended up making was a rickety old POS made from several pulleys, a box of weights, a fulcrum made from some rebar and two really thick broomsticks. In the end we didn't hit the teacher, but we were the only group to get the egg PAST him. In fact, with some more weights we could have hurled that egg a DAMN far ways.

    That was a fun project.

  4. Real trebuchet by Guy+Rixon · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A programme on UK televison earlier this year documented the making of replicas of "real", full-size-and-dangerous trebuchets.

    These beasts are spec'd to hurl rocks ~600kg about 300m (i.e. further than long-bow range, so the crew don't get picked off by the defenders). The replicas did just that, and were suprisingly accurate. The target was a replica segment of castle wall - actual masonry of the style appropriate for maybe 12th century - and the machines knocked holes in it with a few shots.

    The historical idea was to build a machine matching the one that Edward nth of England used on a military expedition into Scotland (sorry, can't remember dates and details, but I think we're talking 1300s here). IIRC, he reduced one castle, then the word spread and the rest surrendered without a fight as soon as the trebuchet showed up on site.