This page is a walkthrough on how to make a catapult. First, here are the supplies & tools needed.
2 1x2's 3 Eye Hooks 20+ Screws 1 Wire Coat hanger Threaded Steel rod 12" long 1/4 inch thick 6 1/4" hex nuts Some string duct tape for pouch
First you have to construct the base of the catapult.
All the base of the catapult is 4 peices of wood, that are screwed together. The center braquets are about 9 inces acoss, and the forward peices are 12 inches.
Once you have it screwed together, it should look like this from the top
after doing that, you need to make the Side bars that hold up the stripped bolt. Here is a diagram of what those look like
The red peices in the above diagram are the 10.5 inch peices of wood, and the black slits are where the screws should go.
In these diagrams, the red bars, are the base, and the green bars are the pillars that will hold up the threaded bolt that the arm goes on.
Now you all you have to do is use a drill and drill a hole through the top of the pillars on each side. Slide the threaded bolt through the hole you drilled, and position the bolts accordingly.
The arm
The arm is by far the most inportant of the whole trebuchet. If the arm is proportioned wrong, nothing works. Here are the meausurements of the arm in this model of tebuchet.
From the weight to the bolt: 4 inches. From The Bolt to the end of the arm 20 inches. The ratio for the arm is, the distance from the End of the arm to the bolt, is 5 times more than the distance of the weight to the bolt.
Weight
The weight, only needs to be 100 times heavier than what your launching. Here are some good things to use as weights: Small Chunks of metal batteries Wet sand or dirt. lead weights/fishing weights.
Sling.
For information about the sling, see the photo gallery. To get there, Click on the link at the top of this page.
Good Links
trebuchet.com
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