Launch Party

Yesterday, Saturday, we had our private launch party. We invited some family and friends and all of our sponsors and helpers. It was a great time. I was very nervous for our first launch. Let's be honest, these people have been waiting to see this for over a year. What if something went wrong now? I've told them that it has worked but it's one thing to hear it and another to see it. We launched out first pumpkin too. It was grown in my backyard. It was a little heavy, 9.8 lbs, but it flew well and landed hard. I took a bunch of the people into the field to see it hit and it was pretty cool.
One thing that was of interest. The last time we launched before this we had been checking the release angle. Our last launch of the day had been shorter than the previous so we knew we had turned it too far. When we launched yesterday, it was far short of where we left it. Nothing had changed, just was shorter. We were able to get it back to a normal distance but it was weird. I guess that's the "nice" thing about using wood.
Also, we are going to have some shirts for sale on our website through Zazzle.com. We are also going to be selling our release pins on the website. These are great if you want repeatability out of your machine.

Medium trebuchet a success

We had our first public launch with our new medium trebuchet. It actually worked, repeatedly! I have some serious doubts that it would hold together after repeated launches. We do have one or two things to modify but nothing serious, a washer here, a cable there. I have to admit that I am already designing a new medium trebuchet for just such an occasion. I want one that is easily assembled by one person. I think I have that part figured out, now I want to come up with a way to launch and re-launch quickly with one person. I am planning on working on this over the winter and spring. I want to make it a more robust machine and not give to much worry to distance. It's for pubic launching and the public is still awed but 100 ft, not just 150ft. That's something that I forget.

New treb problems

So after last years Lake Orion Pumpkin Launch we had to remake the medium trebuchet, for the third time. This time I decided that it would be good to create an OB jr. team. The medium treb is theirs, wi fli hi, is the name. I'm not really sure what it means. The thing is that we have done this several times and, even though we did change a couple of things, we are always running into problems. I just can't seem to figure this stuff out without an actual trial and error. Maybe by next year I will be able to just build one and have it work. We will be launching it this Saturday at Barn Daze in Orion Township. Should be fun.