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.