Trebuchet Saturday - Halloween Spooktacular!

Yesterday was our return trip to Brussels to fix and fire the trebuchet we built back in August. After a morning of repairs of the main axle and some welding, we got to the business of pointlessly hurling crap. We came with an arsenal of various round items. Dan was able to get his hands on both a five-pin and ten-pin bowling ball. We also had a couple pie pumpkins of about 5 pounds each, three large pumpkins of around 20 pounds, two cabbages, and a bag of flour. We were able to fire much more consistantly this time and we soundly beat our longest throw from last time, but we were unable to break the 300 foot barrier, as our longest came in at around 292 feet. I guess that warrants another attempt at some point in the future. Anyway, I'll shut up now and let some pictures and videos speak for themselves...

Pat doing some repairs with the grinder.

Dan made sure that safety was first for the one pulling the pin.

All of our projectiles lined up at the start of the day.

Preparing for the next shot.

Measuring the distance.

That me with the largest pumpkin we had, "Carl". I'm the one on the left (that's right... I diffused your tired old joke before you could even use it!).

It was a Halloween massacre of pumpkins on this day.

And here's the mighty trebucheters who thought it was a great idea to spend a whole Saturday throwing objects across a large field (and it was).

And here's the good stuff... The Videos! Again, these will only be downloadable if my computer is turned on, so they might not be available all the time... but my machine is on a lot.

• One of our first shots of the day where we were fine-tuning things with a five-pin bowling ball. (5694 KB)
• Witness my surprise as the 5 pound pie pumpkin flies much farther than I thought. This was our longest shot of the day at 292 feet. Holy crap, indeed. (4529 KB)
• This is the bag of flour. Awesome. (4317 KB)
• This is the green cabbage, "Cole's Law". (7627 KB)
• What Rudy thought of our projectile cabbage. (2032 KB)
• Here's an excellent shot of what happens to a large pumpkin after it flies over 200 feet through the air. (10872 KB)