Updates

We have had about 10 successful launches and only 2 failed launches on Telos. This is a great ratio. The two failures were to do with the pouch which we have fixed and have since had no failures. Our distance isn't where we want it to be but we are working on every little efficiency that we can.
Our medium trebuchet, or wi fli hi, as our O.B. jr team has named it, is coming along very well. We have the box large enought o hold about 500 lbs. of weight, we have 2 new axles, and I am picking up some bearings and shaft collars today. We will be at the barn on Saturday and hopefully get everything fixed and ready to go. I am hopefull that we can get about 300 or more feet from wi-fli-hi.
One last thing, we started using a laser range finder to measure our launches. If you have access to one of these, use it! It's great. You just hold it up, put your machine in its sights, and shoot the distance. It's very accurate.

It works

It's been a long couple of months with some ups and some downs. The ups were when we got the frame up, got the arm together and today. The downs were when we couldn't lift the arm into place, when the hoist failed (funny video coming later) and plenty of others.
But today was worth it. We made two successful launches. The machine worked beautifully. With the bearings that we are using it is so silent. I really can't believe it. If nothing else, the silence is worth the extra cost for the bearings. We did have one problem that pretty much wrecked our pouch but I realized that we need a check list before we launch to ensure that no stupid little mistakes are made. We will be out at the test range sometime this week to do some more launches with new pouches. Just for S**** and giggles I emailed Dupont about getting some Kevlar. We'll see.