MAKE | Trebuchet – Best of Weekend Projects

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By Eric Michael Beug
Posted 2008/02/15 @ 8:00 am
Category General

This week on the best of Weekend Projects with Bre Pettis, we join him in arms and learn how to make a trebuchet. With a trebuchet, you can smash your enemy’s castle or at least fling the heads of enemy spies into their courtyard. In the old days, the most important metric of a trebuchet is that it can fire farther than your enemy’s archers can shoot their arrows!

In this podcast you’ll see how to build a paperclip trebuchet and a medium sized trebuchet. The paperclip trebuchet can be made in under an hour and it teaches you a lot about how they work.

The medium sized trebuchet took a little longer to cut, drill, and screw together, but it’s not hard.

Download the pdf for more instructions to make your own seige weapon!

In the Maker Shed

8 Responses to Trebuchet – Best of Weekend Projects

Aud1073cH on February 15th, 2008 at 9:46 am said:

For more trebuchet construction ideas, check out more photos of what MAKERS have submitted to the MAKE Photo pool.

My treb is the one made with tongue depressor size craft sticks. It’ll throw a mouse ball 35 feet with 4.5lb of counterweight in its basket.

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paolo on February 15th, 2008 at 8:16 pm said:

boohoohoo, what happenned to brÃ© ? He’s such an awsome chap !

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Cory on February 15th, 2008 at 9:59 pm said:

Trebuchet was the coolest thing I ever made with my dad. Ours was six feet tall, used a coffee can full of rocks, and flung a grapefruit the full length of the high school football field. Not sure if that’s further than an archer could shoot but I bet it’s further than an archer could project a grapefruit.

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TD on February 16th, 2008 at 12:15 pm said:

It seems that it wouldn’t be too hard to convert a swing-set in a park into a trebuchet… Hmmmm.

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Mel Davis on February 21st, 2008 at 7:06 am said:

Check out the Trebuchet kit

http://www.timberkitsus.com

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Mel Davis on February 21st, 2008 at 7:08 am said:

Ooops, forgot to say, they also have a Catapult and a Ballista

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Concerned on March 7th, 2008 at 10:13 am said:

3 months of reruns…

Is Bre OK? Anything new coming soon?

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John Christensen on October 23rd, 2008 at 10:22 am said:

I love the trebuchet! I started looking to build this when I decided that is wasn’t big enough. I haven’ finished it, yet, but I’m planning on building a full scale trebuchet. My goal it to launch a pumpkin the length of a football field. Thanks for getting me started!

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