Heeeeeyyyy Trebuchet!!!

So… I have to be honest. In the beginning of the semester when we got the assignment to build a trebuchet, I had no idea what it was. I now know that it a sort of catapult. For those of you who have questions on the trebuchet… this is the blog for you.
So one of the first questions I had was what the difference is between a trebuchet and just a regular old catapult. Why do we have to say some confusing word that I cannot spell instead of just using the term “catapult”? Basically, a trebuchet is a type of catapult. A catapult is a general term for a medieval device that launches objects and is used as a weapon. A trebuchet is a specific type of catapult. It uses the force of gravity as a counterweight to propel its arm, which launches a pouch, which holds the object to be launched.
Another question I had when I found about our little project was how this whole thing was going to work. Like I said earlier, the trebuchet uses gravity as a counterweight. Thus, on the main arm, there is, on one side, the object to be fired and on the other weights. The arm is held in place by a pin so that the weight is held up. When the pin is removed, gravity takes its place, and the weights go down. When the weight-side of the arm goes down, the object in the sling flies up and flies out.
That is how it is supposed to work. But things do not always go as planned. We definitely learned this through our building of our trebuchet. It did not launch all the times it should have. But nevertheless it was a lot of fun and was ridiculously cool… especially when we launched the cantaloupe! I guess it was awesome to see how everything came together. There were times that we thought that there was no way that this pile of wood that we put together would work. Butt it certainly did! I guess that is what makes honors so great. Not only do we get to do crazy awesome things like building trebuchets, but we also get to accomplish things that we did not think were possible.