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.