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Fling-A-Keg
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."
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
During the spring I saw a documentary about a team building a Trebuchet with medieval tools.
It was on the Swedish science program, Vetenskapens värld.
In the NOVA/WGBH Trebuchet Project (October-November 1998),
the Timber Framers Guild helped to build two Trebuchets,
supervised by Mr Renaud Beffeyte.
A 300 pound stone ball was used to smash a a 7 foot-thick granite wall
more than 160 yards away.
No modern tools were used in the construction.
There are several types of Trebuchets and other war-mashines.
Schematic overviews and more information can be found at Medieval Mechanical Artillery
The annual Pumpkin Chunkin' festival is in Delaware the weekend of November 2-4th. punkinchunkin.com My 3-year old son is gonna love it.