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Lego Trebuchet
An anonymous reader submitted linkage to a
trebuchet made of legos. Using
australian coins for counterweights, it is able to throw a marble 50 feet or
more. I wish they had some photos of it in action, and maybe some
schematics for do it yourselfers, but regardless, looks like a fun
project if you have a pile of legos and a 4-day weekend ;)
If only they made lego cows to throw. This will change my castle wars now though.
"And your both 6 months pregnant by Billy Ray Sirus" "Then why is mom showing and i'm not?" - Married With Children
Of course, a major design flaw is the use of Australian coins, which only go about 56% as far as American ones.
http://au.finance.yahoo.com/m5?a=1&s=AUD&t=USD
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
So we've made a trebuchet out of lego bricks, but at what cost? Don't these mad men realise what they're combining? Weapons design, unlimited creativity, and lego bricks!
A few more rungs up the evolutionary design ladder coupled with another advance or two in mindstorms and we'll be recreating the first ten minutes of Teminator 2. Only this time, instead of a steel chromed skull, it'll be a smiling yellow face.
We're doomed.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
but you can only build the lego trebuchet after you upgrade the lego blacksmithy to make the lego siege workshop.
and don't forget to defend your lego trebuchet with lego archers and lego knights.
AND LOOKOUT FOR THE LEGO ZERG!
It was first broadcast about a year ago, part of a series called "Secrets of Lost Empires", and also included a nice Construction of a Chinese Rainbow Bridge.
The Trebuchet episode is scheduled to be rebroadcast on Tuesday, July 16, 2002, in the States.
Watch the Teaser Trailer for "The Lightning Thief" Her
All we need now is the castle and Lego French Knights to taunt the English King and his men below...
And a Lego Cow.
RUN AWAY!!
kinda sad really.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
New NRA bumper sticker: Make Lego trebuchet criminal, and only criminals will have Lego trebuchets.
--All your stolen base are belong to Rickey Henderson
Although the photos section mentiones that the wheels are not quite necesassry, they are indeed:
The motion of the counterweight falling tries to pull the treb over. A counter to this is to put the trebuchet on wheels. So, as the counterweight falls, the treb rolls forward, allowing the counterweigtht to fall more vertically. This also dramatically increases the distance the treb can make.
More info on DIY trebuchets here
The "Floating Arm" trebuchet design was used on an episode of Junkyard Wars.
IN that design, the arm has two wheels, and runs on a track along the top of the trebuchet, while the counterweight drops purely downwards down a vertical track.
It wouldn't be suitable in midaeval times (due to the wheel on the arm), but is quite easy to do for modern designs, and nicely effective (as you no longer have the big counterweight swinging along, but only going up and down, something easier to engineer for with Legos).
Test your net with Netalyzr
Feh, that's nothin! Too many parts, too easy to fail. What you -really- want to do is make a trebuchet out of -tinkertoys-.
Like I did!
http://www.stonekeep.com/trebuchet/
Event Management Solutions : http://www.stonekeep.com/