Medium Treb 3

Work has been started on Medium Trebuchet 3, at least that's what we are calling it. We are rebuilding it since we pushed it beyond its limits at LOPL 08. It's going to be the same basic size and design. The size has worked well for demonstration purposes and portability. The purpose of this build is for our Oakland Ballistics jr. team which will be headed by one of my eighth graders, Geoff Becker. Since they are a jr. team they only need to launch a 5 lb. pumpkin so we optimized the design using A-treb. I hope to finish work on it next week while my school is on spring break. A-treb says a distance of about 200 ft. with 250 or 300 lbs. I am partially using this as a determinant of A-treb since it was about 40% too high on the tennis ball treb and right on the mini treb.
Speaking of the mini's, they are still selling well. We average about 2 a week. That might not sound like much, but it's good enough for now. That should allow us to completely fund Telos.
Speaking of Telos, it's moving along well. I am still figuring out the engineering numbers. It's tough,there just aren't as many siege weapon engineers around as there used to be. One thing that has helped is reading the posts from Yankee Siege. They did a great job of describing their thought process as they figured out their new arm. Start with march or so of 08'.
I have increased the size of the plates on the throwing arm, and I am almost finished with a working design for the long end of the throwing arm, though the final design could change in favor of being more efficient. Right now, though, I aiming at funtional. Once we can launch we can be more creative with our time. Once I have those two things figured out that's it for design. Then it's just a matter of building. We are looking to get help with ordering and fabrication of the few remaining steel parts that would be needed. Hopefully I will know something in about 2 weeks. Until then, tell your friends, LOPL 09 October 17th.