My experiment with Trebuchet!!

It has been long now that I have been thinking to start blogging but never dared to actually do it. And voila, I am suddenly starting with it today :) It is well said, there's no time and age to start doing something. It generally makes me feel good to pen down my thoughts, and here I go........ Let me tell all that I love to experiment with things, so my first blog is about a recent experiment which we conducted by making a TREBUCHET. Wondering what a trebuchet is-

• Dictionary defines trebuchet as "An engine that provided medieval artillery used during sieges; a heavy war engine for hurling large stones and other missiles" 
• Wiki says " A trebuchet is a type of catapult that works by using the energy of a raised counterweight to throw the projectile". 

Honestly speaking, the idea of making trebuchet didn't came to me naturally. It was actually a task of the activity session in my office (FYI- At my workplace, we have some activities being organised by each team every month..... and we have just started with a 2nd season of those great monthly events). Each team (comprising 5 members) was asked to make a trebuchet with specification of 15X15X08 cm in resting positions and weight limit of 2.5 KG in all. 

We were told about this task 2 weeks in advance. We began with studying and discussing some physics and maths, did lot of meetings and listed down the components we would need to build our bricole. Here's what we figured out we would need-

1. A light weight material to build the arm of trebuchet, which should be adjustable/movable (we decided to start searching for an antenna which will be adjustable, other backup options were aluminium, balsa wood, a light pencil etc.) 
2. Some counter weights for which we found out density of various metals (PS. sequence from High to low was somewhat like this- Platinum, Plutonium, Gold, Mercury, Palladium, Silver, lead, copper , iron, etc.) The 1st thought that came to our mind was procuring some weights, but we managed to procure some lead in the form of round discs. 
3. Next we needed a base and framework to rest our arm. We figured out that it must be heavy enough to support arm and counterweight and for precision, yet light enough to have a high material efficiency. We landed up with an idea to use a kids mechanical kit to prepared the same. 
4. Last and easiest to procure was a sling for which we decided to use some strong nylon thread (we didn't focus much on this part). 

We began with preparing the actual prototype just 3 days before the competition, and made a cute structure using the kids mechanical kit. What we missed out on focusing was a sling release pin, trigger and trough. Though eventually while creating the practical model, we realized their need and eventually managed to get them at place. Here is how it looked like:
                                
It covered a maximum distance of 4 feet with maximum 800 gms of weight. In order to accommodate more weight, we had to make changes in structure as more weight led to loosening of screws and falling of this small structure. To cut the long story short, this cute little model was finally replaced with a wooden structure created with the help of a carpenter.Though this new structure and model didn't look as good as the 1st one, but the max distance we could now achieve was around 12 feet.

Eventually, we participated and stood 2nd in the competition of max distance covered. Team which won covered more than 15 feet while we managed to cover 11 ft with total weight of entire setup= 2.1 KG.

There were a couple of learnings from other's stories and other models which though are worth sharing but will be covered in my next blog. Let me just talk about the leanings in precise right now-
"If you pay attention to what you're doing and build your trebuchet with care, you can soon be having fun with it. Make sure that you don't rush into building it, however. If you do something wrong, it could be very difficult to fix, and cause your trebuchet to throw consistently to one side, or toss everything straight into the ground. Building your own trebuchet can be fun and simple. Just make sure that you've got a good plan going in, and everything you throw will go far!"

Right now i am in the process to improvise upon the existing model with the help of my husband (It's imp. to mention that he had been a gr88 help in the entire process since the kick off). Will keep you updated on wherever I land up next.... Till then keep on experimenting :)