Re: Popperpult

Jul 14, 2003 4 Replies



> Just a nice little tale of a boy and his Dad...
>
> My son went to a Cub Scout camp, and came back with a little cheap BSA
> catapult kit. We had a lot of fun chucking pop-it firecracker things into
> the street with the thing, but it wasn't very powerful.
>
> The dogs chewed it up, and that was that, so we set about making a new one.
> I've made a friend at a furniture manufacturing plant, and I get to take
> home all the scrap I can use. I've got a goodly supply of hardwood plywood
> bits and clear yellow pine board ends and whatnot. Excellent wood suitable
> for small projects.
>
> This thing has grown in organic fashion, without any real plan along the
> way. The first few versions were big flops, but bit by bit we've been
> figuring out how to build a catapult that really works. I've knocked apart
> the Mark III (which was actually about the sixth try), and am going to
> manufacture some improved parts for the Mark IV model, replacing pine with
> plywood for improved stress resistance, and adding some extra bracing. >
> We've gotten the design down great, using two mini bungee chords for power.
> The sucker chucked a ~1-inch river rock 85 feet! It's so powerful that we
> had to start instituting strict firing range rules. :)
>
> Anyway, I just had to brag. 85 feet! Wuhoo!
>
> --
> Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
> Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
> Confirmed post number: 16390 Approximate word count: 1639000
>
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???Sounds like a blast! Scott

Gonna take some when I get the new parts made and do the whole thing up in candy apple red. Maybe apply some flame decals... :)

It's the most fun I've had in my shop in years.

Some links:

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fun.

Huh? Did you say something? I went away for a couple of hours. :)

I think this tears it. I'm going to complete Popperpult Mark IV as currently designed, and then I'm going to build a real trebuchet, now that I know what they actually look like, and how they're supposed to work. Then we'll see whether modern bungee chord power can out-throw mideival technology. :)

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