Spring is coming

Well, we took a month or two off after our crazy busy Christmas season. We sold the Mini's very well. We were averaging 1 1/2 mini's per day online and a bunch for the stores. Even with all of those sales, we are still woefully short on funds. I have done the numbers though and we are looking good over time.
Now on to the hard stuff. We purchased the A-treb simulator. It's really fantastic. It's a must buy for anyone who wants to build a big trebuchet, over 6 ft. It gives you all the numbers that you could possibly need. It also forces you learn about your trebuchet and the materials. Totally worth the $19.95.
After looking through it for a while we realized that the forces involved in Telos got really big, really fast. We tried increasing the CW by 50% and it increased the forces on the axles and frame by over 100%! We are settling into a comfortable CW zone for our trebuchet. It's a lot of weight and should be sufficient for us to do a good showing. In order to come to these realizations, I had to learn how to be an engineer. It's not that hard if you are willing to partner with your browsers Google toolbar and ask it lots of questions. Eventually I was able to understand what was going on and how to adjust it. It's very exciting to understand these things. I am now working on designing a cable-stay for the throwing arm. I beleive that the cable-stay combined with the Versa Lam lumber will be sufficient. There's a website, http://www.efunda.com/formulae/solid_mechanics/beams/casestudy_display.cfm?case=cantilever_endload
that will tell you if your throwing arm is sufficient for the forces involved. You need to know several very specific numbers for your arms material (Google) and you will need to know the forces being involved.
I will start to update the blog more regularly, I got out of the habit and have been focusing on other aspects. There is a lot going on and I want to tell you about all of it, I just have to take the time to slow down and do it.