Building a Trebuchet (With Slow Motion Video)

Trebuchets are time consuming, but can be fun....but not if it doesn't work! Make sure you are willing to put time aside to build this. Our group's catapult was built slightly bigger to fulfill the requirements, but size varies.

We spent a good 8.5hrs working on this because we chose to buy everything from scratch and Cut the wood ourselves, which was not so great a choice because that took forever. Other options would be to go to Home Depot and pick up a piece of wood, and take it to the counter to have them cut it for you. Drilling and nailing the wood together was another painful task to do.

The overall price for ours was estimated to about $25, which was then split between 3 people. But prices may vary.

Design:

Our thought process was to nail a bunch of wooden pieces together onto the swing arm to create the weight. The swing arm, weight, and body was all composed of wood. Miniature wheels were added to the bottom of the set up to prevent the contraption from tipping over during the release process. PVC pipe was used to hold the swing arm in place, and provided structural support. Four metal plates were nailed into the two wooden arms to give it support. The sling was added later along with the ball. Our release mechanism was to attach the two screw eyes into the wood, and have a metal rod go through the center, and when it's ready, all that has to be done is to pull the rod from its place.

Materials used:

1) 3 pieces of wood (any wood will work)

2) 4 miniature wheels (for the base of the trebuchet)

3) PVC pipe ( and 2 caps)

4) 2 cartridges of nails/screws

5) 2 Screw Eyes

6) Drill Bits

7) Drills and Hammers

8) Saw (If cutting wood)

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The pictures show what the trebuchet looks like, during the building process. If the video works properly, you should be able to see how the ball is released in Slow Motion. This video is only the first test that we did, so the release was not properly done. But it should give you an idea on how/what is supposed to happen.

** Another video / slow mo will be added very soon **

Built and Created by:

-Bryan G. and Jacob W.