Getting ready for the season

We here at Oakland Ballistics have been hard at work preparing as many Mini Trebs for sale as we can. As is mentioned on the website, we will be in Metro Parents Gift Guide. We are really looking forward to this. We are hoping to raise enough money this holiday season to purchase all the remaining parts for Telos so we can start construction as soon as the weather breaks in the spring. We have been continuing to refine the Mini Treb design. We are currently searching for a way to have the pouches and strings computer cut but the costs are pretty high so far. Lake Orion Lumber has been great in helping us obtain the highest quality wood. They have it ready to go when I go in there to pick it up. They also have a Mini Treb on display.
Speaking of a website, did you get a chance to check out the new website? Ryan put a lot of time in to that and I think it turned out really well. We are thankful for EES's help on the previous website but we really think this fits with our team. The other nice thing about the new website is that Ryan can make updates to it almost instantaneously.
Lately, our sponsor, Troy Laser Fab, has been a real handy contact to know. They are supplying us with free steel dust and scrap to use for counterweight for Telos as well as providing us expertise in some areas. We are really thankful for their help.
The last comment for now is that we are getting ready to unveil our new trebuchet model. We are designing it to launch a tennis ball 200ft. I know that a tennis ball trebuchet is cliche, but we have been asked to build one by several different people. Check back in a week or so to see the article and the new trebuchet.

Lake Orion Pumpkin Launch

Well, we didn't win. We actually came in 3rd. At first glance, it is disappointing but after further reflection, I am actually okay with how things went. That's not to say that the event was a total success, it was. We had 4 teams and the winning distance was 385 I believe.
What I do mean is that even though our machine only worked for a few launches and had to be repaired after all but one or two launches, this wasn't our ultimate goal. Our goal has been to construct Telos. We learned a lot of valuable lessons from this test. Lessons like: "we need a new winch", "the arm saver concept still need some work" and "it's a darn good thing we are doing a hinged instead of a fixed."
The fixed CW concept has proven extremely difficult. We knew it would be a difficult idea but not this difficult. We had some problems dating back to the first construction. The holes in our throwing arm for the axle is just too big. It was originally designed to have sleeves inside to help with the swinging.
Since we have the hard work done for Telos, cutting, drilling, design, we can now hunker down and raise some real cash. That's really all there is left, to raise money.

Arm saver Testing

We had a long day of testing and building with our most recent team member, Ed. We worked on our medium trebuchet with the goal of having it ready for the Lake Orion Pumpkin Launch. We are still going to try to win the competition even though we are not entering Telos. Our big hurdle to over comer is the use of the arm savers. Our original design called for it to fall away before it was hit by the throwing arm. that didn't work since we didn't have as much weight on pulling on the arm saver as we did on the throwing arm. the result was that the throwing arm hit the arm saver, violently. Nothing large was broken and the repairs were made in minutes. Over dinner we re-evaluated our design and came up with two new possibilities. We decided to try using cables instead of an axle to attach the ends of the arms savers. It worked much better. We wil do some more testing and refining next Sunday. Our distances up to this point are very encouraging, we are looking at 205 ft. as of now.
Check out the Youtube video to see how our testing went.

Our new plan for this year

Money, money, money. It's always about the money. We were so close. We have the bolts, nuts, gussets, wood (cut and drilled), CW box and bricks. We had a quote for the axles, tubing, shaft collars, and everything else we needed. The problem is that the quote was for about $2000. That's just more money that what we had. We are disappointed but we know it's for the best. Even if we had the money it would have been pushing it to get it done in time.
Our new plan is to modify our medium trebuchet to a fixed CW and add on some of our ideas for Telos. Our new release pin, arm savers, cable stays, and a couple of other items. This will allow us to test out some of these ideas on a smaller, less expensive scale while we raise some money. Also, it frees us up to work on the kits which are almost done, the new website, and producing more mini treb's to continue raising money.
We will be ready for next year. We have 13 months to raise about $3000 and to get everything finished and tested. It's going to be great to finally get there.

Things are moving (still slowly)

One thing that we never really considered (or at least I didn't) was that cost would end up being an issue. Apparently, our sponsors didn't think about it either. Costs are finally coming and the prices are more than anyone had expected. The wood is paid for, the bolts are paid for, the box is paid for and the gussets are sort of paid for. We are struggling to finish the funding construction, heck, if it wasn't for the money we might be doing our first launch in a week. We are committed to finishing and possibly paying ourselves back in the future. We will see. 

On the brighter side, both Froggy's in Rochester and Little Monsters in Lake Orion have put in orders for more of the Mini-Trebs. Adventure in Toys in Birmingham has recently taken delivery of their first order. We will see how things go, but we are optimistic. 

Here's a look at what a pile of gussets for a trebuchet looks like.

Telos, the early years

Uploaded by www.cellspin.net

Picture of fixed counterweight medium trebuchet

Uploaded by www.cellspin.net

Posted on 16 Aug 2008 at 04:48 UTC

Well, I recently got an iPhone and have been getting pretty used to it. I have finally figured out how to blog while on the road. I'll keep you posted.

The construction begins (slowly)

We have officially started the parts part of our construction. The box is being constructed by a new sponsor, Henze Industries and will be finished off by Cayuga LLC. The wood has been ordered (all $2,700 of it) by John Yarema of Yarema Marquetry. Next week both Ryan and I are busy but the following week we will be in Yarema Marquetry's workshop cutting and drilling. The gussets should be cut and done in two weeks. That's pretty much it. The axles will be ordered through Cayuga and then the details will be worked out as we put it together.

Our second distributor

I am pleased to announce our new distributor, Froggy's Toy Shop in Rochester Mi. I delivered the first order of 10 mini-trebuchets on Thursday and before I could even drop them off Froggy's had sold 3 of them. It's a great little store located in downtown Rochester at 114 E. 4th st. Please stop in and help grow this burgeoning educational toy store.

A name for a trebuchet

We have been deliberating about a name for our upcoming trebuchet for some time now. We have gone from a historical perspective like Alexander or Philip to a fun name, something having to do with a barn. We finally, without really thinking about it, came up with Telos. It's a Greek word, generally used in philosophy, meaning the ultimate purpose of something. For example, the Telos of a knife might be to cut. For us, the Telos of Oakland Ballistics was to get to Punkin' Chunkin' and our machine will fulfill that purpose. We will see you there.

New Workshop

Here are a couple of pictures from our new workshop. As you can see it's just a bit larger than our previous one and since we are getting use of it for free it's a Godsend.

Our new workshop

We moved into our new workshop about a two weeks ago. Boy is it nice. If you saw a past picture of our old workshop then you know how small it was. Our new one, which is a barn, is huge. There's room for at least 8 people to work comfortably. We have all of our tools setup which is really nice. We should have pictures up this weekend.

Mini Trebuchet update

We have delivered 10 of the mini-trebuchets to Little Monsters toy store in Lake Orion mi. They are our first official distributor. We are looking forward to finding more distributors and continuing to expose people to the scientific and historical aspects of trebuchets. Our online store is still under construction (slow) but coming along. We are also working on a DIY kit version of the Mini Trebuchet. We'll keep you posted. Thanks.

Wooden trebuchet

Our goal has been to make a world class trebuchet using wood instead of the steel that is so widely used at the level we hope to compete. To do this, we decided to enlist the help of a structural engineer named Marty Klein. Marty has been instrumental to the further development of our trebuchet design. One thing that was nice to know was that my A-frame design was strong enough on it's own. The part that needed the most changes was the Arm. This makes sense given that that is where the weight is attached to. We have decided to go with engineered wood like perilam. It has superior strength capabilities compared to standard wood alone.

A new event, some new engineering

We had an event over the weekend in Lake Orion. We launched dry ice into the lake. Why dry ice, because we had to meet certain environmental requirements, plus, it was fun. The impressiveness of the machine wasn't really there since the distances were being compared to the houses across the lake. The dry ice was fun though and we introduced the concept to some new people which is always worth it.
We have been meeting with our engineering consultant Marty, and have had some very productive correspondence. We will be using engineered wood, micro laminate, in the throwing arm and CW arm. This will reduce weight (not important in the CW arm) which will help in transportation and construction. The engineered wood is also tons stronger than regular wood. Marty is also giving us some really great input into the structural soundness of our design. It makes me feel good to hear that our design works or how to fix our design so that it will work.

Look for the new website soon (hopefully)!

Sling idea for fine tuning

After working with both the previous medium treb and the mini-trebs i came to the conlcusion that there had to be a better way to adjust the sling length. The idea I came up with came from a friendship bracelet that my son brought home. I used this link: http://www.animatedknots.com/index.php?LogoImage=LogoGrog.jpg&Website=www.animatedknots.com and used the double fishermans knot. The site is a great site to learn about knots, many different knots, at least 50. I then used a wire rope clamp to secure the rope at the desired length. The clamps that I used were too big but I found smaller ones and I hope they work better. Good luck!

Oakland Ballistics

Just to give you an idea of what we are doing here's a picture of our workshop (current). We are in working on a new workshop that is vastly larger and is located at our testing range.
Also, an update on the new medium trebuchet, we did some launching yesterday, Saturday. What a great day it was for launching, hot and sunny. We don't have any pictures but it sure was neat. With about 350 lbs of CW we launched a 3 lb. projectile around 170 ft. or so. We didn't spend too much time fine tuning it because we were just making sure that it worked properly. We did find one design flaw, the holes for the bolts that held the skinny section of the throwing arm in place were drilled one size larger to make it easier to put the bolts. What I didn't plan on was that the bolts would then take advantage of the extra space and shift, thus shifting the arm at an angle. Not a structural problem but annoying. I fixed the problem today and i am looking forward to launching it again. Hopefully we will have pictures soon. Until then, enjoy the remnants of the old trebuchet.

New Medium Trebuchet

After seeing our trebuchet without snow surrounding it, we realized that it was time for an upgrade. We decided to start from scratch instead of trying to salvage the old one. The old one was made for fun and function, not for looks. The new design is sleeker and cleaner and includes ideas from the mini-trebs and the large treb that we are still designing. it is a little taller and a little wider. If you want, we can build one for you for around $100 to $150. If you have some land it looks nice sitting outside (lawn ornament?) and it's fun to play with.

Lake Orion Flower Fair

We had a great showing at the Flower fair this past weekend. We sold 35 mini trebuchets and had a great time talking to every person who stopped by our booth. We are so grateful that everyone showed interest in us and were so generous in supporting our team. We are really excited for our next public appearance at the Celebrate Parks day on June 7th at Green's Park. If you don't know where that is, well, here's a map: http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&q=Green's+Park,&near=Lake+Orion,+MI&fb=1&view=text&latlng=10257947533047557111#
Thanks again for your help and we look forward to seeing everyone again soon.

Gearing up!

Well, sorry about the disappearance, we got locked out of our account. It is now fixed. Anyway, we are in full gear for the Lake Orion Flower Fair. It should be a great opportunity for us to get our name out there. We will have the Medium treb on hand to do some non-weighted, dry fires. We will also have our mini-trebs on hand for sale. If you are interested in buying one or seeing them in action stop by. Check an earlier post for our booth's position.
The mini-treb's first run went well. We completed 26 and they work very well. A whiffle ball will go about 20 some feet while a marble will go about 30 some feet. The distance can be increases if you can find more dense material to put in the box (we used rocks). After things get calmed down on the mini-treb construction and the Large treb construction gets going, we will look at doing other designs for the mini-trebs.
Speaking of the large treb, the construction is moving along. We have some of the lumber and we are close to ordering the rest. It's my fault that we don't have everything ready to go. I have been working on Sketchup and I still have some work to do. I expect to have it ready before next week. That includes the measurements for the CW, the measurements for the axle and the measurements for the lumber. I'll check back in later this week with some more updates.

Good progress

As you may learn, "making progress" or a derivation of that is one of my favorite sayings and today we made progress. We worked with Harry, our new team member for the first time today. He jumped right in on the construction of the Mini-trebs. Harry is also our new internet exclusive distributor of Oakland Ballstics mini-trebs. They should be up and selling in a couple of weeks. As always, if you cannot wait, you are welcome to visit us at the Lake Orion Flower fair on May 17th and 18th.

We had a bit of a mishap with our medium trebuchet today. On our fourth firing of the day the CW box fell off the axle. We had just talked about lessening the weight in the box. The damage is less than troubling and should only take about 20 minutes to repair. Still it was in front of our new sponsor, Yarema Marquetry. John Yarema has talked us into scaling up the project to more than 50% larger. This project just got really big. As always, I won't talk specifics but I would be willing to bet that if we pull this off we will have the largest trebuchet in Michigan.

Kingsbury Country Fair

We have just made arrangements to be at the Kingsbury School Country Fair in Oxford. We will have the Medium Treb setup and will be selling our Mini-trebs to help raise money. We will have some of our Oakland Ballistics apparel for display and some of our bumper stickers for sale.
Speaking of bumper stickers, our Zazzle account is almost complete. We should have a link to our store on the website sometime next week. Be sure to check it out, we hope you will find it as humorous as we did.

Lots of progress

Ryan and I met today for about 4 hours to work on the details of the mini-treb and the large treb. We basically finalized the design of the mini-treb and will be setting a date to build those to have them ready for the Lake Orion Flower Fair.
As for the Large Treb, we made lots of progress. I thought we pretty much had the design finished but we figured out some issues that we had had on the medium treb and came up with ways to fix those. We have decided to use wooden gussets made out of plywood to keep all of the junctions of wood together. We figure we can use 3/4 plywood to brace all connections. This plus construction adhesive should keep the wood together, with a little help from the 6" deck screws.
The most exciting news from today I cannot share with you. We made a major breakthrough in the design of our Large Treb. We had run into a problem of wheels for the treb, since we are using a fixed CW wheels are a must. The problem is that with the CW swinging down the forces that would need to be overcome would have cost a minimum of $120.00. That was something that Ryan could not fathom. So, he came up with an ingenious plan what is both cheap and simple. We will be testing it on our Medium Treb to decide if it will work. If it does work, check back after Oct. 25th when we will reveal all (or most) of our secrets. If it doesn't work, check back soon when we tell you one idea not to try.

Trebuchet Apparel

We are looking at having some Trebuchet and Oakland Ballistics apparel and bumper sticker type items. We are coming up with some pithy saying to have on them. You will be able to choose from several designs, several slogans. Check back in about a week and see what we have.

Lake Orion Flower Fair appearance

It's official, we will have a booth at the Lake Orion Flower on May 17th and 18th. Come by and visit us. We will have the mini-trebs for sale as well as information about the upcoming Lake Orion Pumpkin Launching Contest.

Here's a link to Google maps as to where Lake Orion is and where we will be. We are at booth #78 which is near the State Farm Insurance office at Shadbolt and Broadway streets.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=E.+Shadbolt+st.+and+N.+Broadway+st.+Lake+Orion,+MI,+USA&jsv=107&sll=42.785492,-83.239873&sspn=0.000937,0.002009&ie=UTF8&ll=42.786063,-83.239868&spn=0.007496,0.016072&z=16&iwloc=addr

Getting some Proffessional help

Normally, Ryan and i are do-it-yourself/figure-it-out-yourself kind of guys, but when we started talking about weights exceeding 800 lbs we thought we might want some professional help. The guy we have been talking to has been giving us some informal help but has indicated some professional help including materials and tools. This should make things much easier. I look forward to having some update as to his help later this week.

Mini Treb is a success!

I took advantage of the nice weather today and completed work on the mini-treb. It took a little while to make the final adjustments, I have found that when working on such a small scale there is much less room for error. After much trial and error including rebuilding the CW box about three times, the mini treb finally launched. The first few launches didn't go so well but after a few adjustments I was able to get a marble to go 26'. The next two launches went 25' and 28'. I called it a day after those launches, needless to say I was very pleased. I'll let you know how things turn out after some more tweaking. Remember, only $12 for a mini-treb that can accomplish 28' or more.

Mini Trebuchet coming soon

I did a fair amount of tinkering today with our design for a mini trebuchet. We plan on selling it to raise money for our team. I don't have any estimates for distance yet, but the price should be about $12. Expect to see videos and details soon.

First entry, lots going on

Well, this is our first post for Oakland Ballistics. We have been doing a lot of work over the last two weeks or so. The competition for Lake Orion is official which gave us the impetus to begin our design process for what we are calling the winning trebuchet. While we won't be divulging too many specifics about our upcoming machine until after the competition we will give some details.
To start with, we designed our treb using Google Sketchup. I can't tell you how handy this was. We were able to design, view and operate our treb without spending any money. We made a few changes to the design like making the vertical supports higher to allow a greater cocking angle. The greater the angle the greater distance, in general. A good place to start is usually recommended as 45 degrees, but I would suggest more of 50 degrees. It allows for the arm to swing longer and therefor gain more speed.
As you can see we have a website, that is in total part due to Ryan. The website, we hope, will be a place for hurlers to go as a resource for building their own trebs. We will be posting videos, pictures and anything else that we can post to help. We look forward to any comments that any has and we are willing to make any changes to help.