Development

Construction on the model trebuchet has begun.

The final design can be found below

Here are some links that we found to help us research our trebuchet design.

Floating Arm King Arthur
Youtube video of FAKA
Theory of Trebuchets
More Trebuchet math - First couple pages are really important!! Pages 4 and 5 are the most basic calculations. A 1000lb counterweight (100x the 10lb pumpkin) requires a 10 foot trebuchet. Or rather, the counterweight has to be 10 feet above the ground. A 750 lb counterweight (75x the 10lb pumpkin) requires a 13.33 ft height.

2011 2nd place Trebuchet Winner, Floating Axle/Arm design

Using the program Algodoo, we have been working on optimizing the parameters of our trebuchet.

Here is a video of a sample launch.

This launch was approximately 230m, with a 115kg counterweight and a 2 kg payload.

Stress and Displacement analysis for the axle holding the arm and counterweight. Here, a foot long piece of 2in diameter steel with a 1000 pound force applied at the center is simulated. Note that all displacements are tiny, and stresses are an order of magnitude below yield strength.