Onion Eater
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2008
- Messages
- 65
A trebuchet is a type of catapult that converts the potential energy of a counterweight into the kinetic energy of a projectile. The simplest version operates like a see-saw, with the counterweight suspended from a hanger attached to the short arm and the projectile held in a sling attached to the throwing arm. When the short arm is raised and then released, the throwing arm rotates faster because it is longer and the sling rotates even faster as it whips around the end of the throwing arm.
At their inception during the Middle Ages, trebuchets were used to hurl boulders at or over castle walls in an attempt, usually successful, to batter them down. Modern trebuchet designers, lacking castles to besiege and fair maidens to rescue, must content themselves with hurling cooking pumpkins for distance. Competition, however, is fierce, and the winner of the contest can expect any fair maidens present at the pumpkin festival to hurl themselves at him. Thus, it behooves us to put as much study into the ballistics of pumpkins as old-time mathematicians put into the study of cannonballs.
Visit The Ballistic Coefficient of Pumpkins to read the rest of my paper.
Ron Toms, the owner of the Catapult Message Board, dares me to go talk to an engineering or physics professor regarding that nonsense I've been peddling about 45° being the optimal launch angle.
Very well. I will take that dare. Are there any engineering or physics professors on this forum who would like to comment on the accuracy of my paper?
At their inception during the Middle Ages, trebuchets were used to hurl boulders at or over castle walls in an attempt, usually successful, to batter them down. Modern trebuchet designers, lacking castles to besiege and fair maidens to rescue, must content themselves with hurling cooking pumpkins for distance. Competition, however, is fierce, and the winner of the contest can expect any fair maidens present at the pumpkin festival to hurl themselves at him. Thus, it behooves us to put as much study into the ballistics of pumpkins as old-time mathematicians put into the study of cannonballs.
Visit The Ballistic Coefficient of Pumpkins to read the rest of my paper.
Ron Toms said:
Ron Toms, the owner of the Catapult Message Board, dares me to go talk to an engineering or physics professor regarding that nonsense I've been peddling about 45° being the optimal launch angle.
Very well. I will take that dare. Are there any engineering or physics professors on this forum who would like to comment on the accuracy of my paper?
