For those of you who don't know what a trebuchet is, it is a form of catapult used extensively during the middle ages. They are very simple and work extremely well. They consist of two trusses on the sides and a main arm. On the shorter end of the arm there is counter weight and the arm just swings down throwing the "missile." On the long end there is a sling which, at about half way through the arm's swing, becomes partly disabled allowing the "missile" to be released.

The Purpose of my building this trebuchet was for a school club. We are entering it in a contest to see who can throw a pumpkin the farthest, it my sound kind of dumb but in actuality it is a really fun event. The commercial division has teams sponsored by major business and can hurl a pumpkin thousands of feet

Just to let you know I am not the only person building this thing. I had the help of fellow classmates and friends Robert Delaney, Andy Trazkus, Robert Delaney Senior (the other Rob's dad), Robert Delaney Senior^2 (Robert's Grandpa), Andy's dad, and Cory although he didn't do anything.

Our trebuchet is 8 feet tall, and has a 15 foot long arm, we will be using Approximately 850 pounds of counter weight. While we were hoping to shoot a pumpkin 400-600 feet, the best we got was 273, but it was good enough to get us first place and the Morton, Illinois Punkin Chuckin contest. There was also a very strong head wind that day.