Yes he ends up with a cute toy that flings a marble but sounds like a rifle.
But in the video he explains the engineering process to start with the desired goal and then optimized and derive the parameters he needed to achieve that result. It was a good example of engineering.
I’d like to suggest linking directly to the video (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdXOS-B0Bus" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdXOS-B0Bus</a>) instead of the hackaday page, which doesn’t even pretend to add anything and is largely incoherent besides.
The most striking aspect is that he was explicitly optimizing for <i>project difficulty</i>. I smiled when he said, in effect, 'let's mathematically calculate How Hard Can it Be'. Sure kid...<p>But that's what he did. Fantastic job determining the criticial criteria and engineering to it.<p>3 weeks total project time.<p>Kid's got a future...
Fun fact, you can accelerate an almost-everyday object to supersonic speeds: whip tip [1,2].<p>1. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whipcracking" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whipcracking</a><p>2. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnaASTBn_K4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnaASTBn_K4</a> (very much recommended)
At 13:12 in that video notice the tension in the frame and how the main spars are getting out of alignment with the part the winch is mounted on. I wonder how much spare strength there still is but it can't be much. Pretty scary machine!
I really hope he gets to partner up with Smarter Every Day or with The Slo Mo guys, for high-speed recording. I'd love to see how the trebuchet parts bend/vibrate during a prep/launch.
Reminds me of the unlikely idea of using a whip crack to send something into orbit[0] maybe SpinLaunch needs to consider adding another joint to their arm. I'd love to see a massive trebuchet launch something into orbit.<p>[0] <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/amazon-patented-system-whips-stuff-space" rel="nofollow">https://futurism.com/the-byte/amazon-patented-system-whips-s...</a>
Here is the local newspaper's coverage of the supersonic trebuchet (Manitoulin Island, northern Lake Huron in Canada):<p><a href="https://www.manitoulin.com/island-engineer-designs-supersonic-siege-engine/" rel="nofollow">https://www.manitoulin.com/island-engineer-designs-supersoni...</a>
If you build one of these then practice better range safety than this guy. He apparently has the trebuchet loaded while tensioning the rubber bands downrange of the release point. Excellent engineering work though.
It is interesting to me how many engineers hop from English ("3 inches to go on the rubber band") to the metric system ("400 meters per second"). Andy Weir touches on this in his book "Hail Mary".
This post prompted me to google "last time trebuchet used in combat".<p>The answer appears to be 2013/14 by Syrian Rebels fighting against the Syrian Army.<p><a href="https://www.quora.com/Warfare-When-was-the-last-time-a-catapult-or-trebuchet-was-used-in-a-battle" rel="nofollow">https://www.quora.com/Warfare-When-was-the-last-time-a-catap...</a>
This is a perfect example of <i>engineering</i>. He says it at the end - its not something that could ever be arrived at by accident. (And I suspect its not feasible to launch sizeable weights (bowling balls) at near mach 1. The Ancient Romans would have been disappointed :-)
That's pretty awesome. May have to give a whirl. Thanks!<p>I remember years ago seeing some show about weapons seized in jail, and one of them was a crossbow made out of underwear that could shoot a plastic fork through a steel filing cabinet.
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with the supersonic trebuchet.<p>Excellent engineering video and it hope it inspires more young engineers than it lands in the ER. Stay safe kids!
Missed the opportunity to use the Trebuchet MS font: <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trebuchet_MS" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trebuchet_MS</a>
I've always thought the trebuchet cord should be wrapped around a wheel. Then the force would always be rotational - no component of fource would pull against the hub and be wasted.
Instead of torsion-applied force for his videoed trebuchet, he could have gone with a set of spiral gears to obtain the progressively increasing speed using just the original gravity-based counterweight method.<p>Something like toroidal continuously variable transmission (CVT) in today’s automobile.<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuously_variable_transmission" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuously_variable_transm...</a>
Built at trebuchet for physics high school class eons ago. This is that same project after completing an engineering degree and dosing it with steroids. Well done.<p>Kind of wish I had gone back to my trebuchet post engineering program.
Off topic:<p>What’s up with the ”[Name]” quoting style they’re using? I’ve only ever seen it when changing names/words inside quotes[1], but here it is being used outside of quotes.<p>[1] Which I don’t mind when used within reason.
Cool, hadn't heard of this guy before. Judging from the headline, I would have assumed it was Tom Stanton, or even more probably, Jörg Sprave.<p>(Or, dammit, what's the name of that English guy who builds and sells medieval weapons?)
This is a perfect illustration of why I chuckle when people claim to be able to "ban guns".<p>He is projecting a 3/8" (.375 caliber) round steel projectile at ~3x the maximum velocity limit for an unrestricted air rifle in Canada.<p>Using a crank and some hefty rubber bands.
Cute. It is around 8 feet long and per the comments, it throws tennis balls. Throwing a tennis ball at supersonic speed is nothing to sneeze at, but the really impressive thing about historical and modern trebuchets is how big some of them got. They could throw things like pianos, as in a famous Northern Exposure episode. Doing that supersonically would have really been something ;).