I give you (as promised) the Turley Trebuchet.
Today Jack will release his Trebuchet (a gravity catapult) upon his fifth grade class — as well as a small torsion catapult (made with an office clip and less historically interesting). We went “old school” for this Trebuchet — using all original material from metal, wood, leather, twine, and stone. It works like a charm and will put your eye out at 30 feet! Leslie will only let us throw tinfoil balls and will not allow us to use historically accurate diseased animals or stones. Now, the other legal blogs will fear us. Those geeks at Volokh conspiracy laughed at me. Who is laughing now, Eugene? Ha, ha, ha, who is laughing now?! . . . Now, if we can only find a little castle . . .
I will add that the world record punkin chunkin distance is 4483 feet. It turns out, in order to get past about 3200 feet, the pumpkin has to leave the device with a velocity higher than mach one. Only the air cannons have been able to achieve this to date. I do however have a design for a catapult that I believe could break the speed of sound and blow all of the other designs out of the water. As soon as I come up with $20K and a few months to build it, I may enter it into the World Championship Punkin Chunkin 🙂 If anyone would like to sponsor this effort, please let me know 🙂 And no Prof. Turley, I was not calling the Turley Trebuchet “non serious”. But you can’t call yourself serious about trebuchets until you have made the journey to Delaware 🙂
see also http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=punkin+chunkin
But how far can it chuck a pumpkin?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumpkin_chunking
JT:
“However, Mespo disregards the libelous attack on the lethal capability of the Turley Trebuchet.”
*************
As with many fouls in life, it is the responding party that takes the wrath of the referee. (So the rule appears to be: Strike First!). In any event, the blog jury stands unimpressed. Alan’s honor must be vindicated and JT’s apology smacks of less than sincerity. I suggest cap pistols at dawn with their respective seconds at the ready. Trebuchets need not accompany the duelers.
So sayeth one of us; so sayeth us all.
–Blog Jury
Flashback to medieval France: “We must invade England. We have reports that they have an outbreak of the plague. Plague bodies can be readily weaponized. Also, England is known to have logs. As we all know logs are dual-use technology as they can be made into catapults. Therefore England has WMDs! We must invade!” Oops – tangent – sorry!
Once my niece/nephew/godkids are old enough, I’m seriously planning on making and giving them living room floor scale castle siege sets: wooden blocks for castle building and small (8″ high?) trebuchets, battering rams, siege towers and so on with which to attack your friend/sibling’s keep. Sure, this will result in projectiles flying around the house and a great deal of whooping, yelling and general horseplay, but hey, I’m planning on leaving out the boiling oil!
> I’m sorry, Alan, but did you just suggest that the Turley Trebuchet is not “serious”?
I have to say, I will not apologize for the elite Delaware Ivy League trebuchet’s. They are just as much a part of the real America as the rural Virginia trebuchets. Trebuchets should not be penalized for their success. That would be socialism! And that’s all I have to say on that.
JT,
For primitive sibling warfare my family always went for the bow and arrow made from a ball point pen and rubber bands. We’re lucky to have never crossed the path of such military geniuses as your clan.
Thank you Gyges, that is indeed what our Trebuchet looked like in action . . .without the piano, distance, music, or public acclaim. Otherwise, it was pretty much the same.
P.S.: I will note that Jack and I succeeded in hitting Leslie (a furtive, moving, and increasing hostile target) twice in the kitchen.
Ok, I will yield to the blog jury and withdraw the impugning of Alan as the type of disease-ridden body normally thrown by a trebuchet over castle walls. However, Mespo disregards the libelous attack on the lethal capability of the Turley Trebuchet. A sufficiently slow moving mouse would be history in a one-to-one contest with our medieval weapon — particularly if one of our lethal aluminum foil balls went down its throat. Serious indeed.
Now that the prototype’s done when are you going to work on the full sized model?
Oh, and I forgot, I sported a holy/holey colander as my helmet—I *was* a Crusadin’ Southin’ Baptist machine in that bygone era of the 1950s a’fightin’ the local back-alley crime scene.
What surprises me the most is that a wife/mom would allow that *claptrap contraption* on an expensive Persian/Prussian-lookin’ rug. Perhaps she has not yet seen the photographic evidence.
Okay, I confess, the best I could muster as a 5th grader was to employee a dented galvanized metal trash can lid—before plastics—as my shield and a piece of rusty angle iron as my sword…
JT:
The blog jury, which I chair, finds your comments insulting and libelous per se(“worthless disease-ridden body” with loathsome disease being presumed) to Alan. Either heads will roll, or a prohibition will be levied on you precluding construction of anything more war-like than a paper airplane. You can’t carry disease ridden bodies in that–I don’t think. Whatever happened to the pleasant little pleasure craft captained by “Kirby”?
http://jonathanturley.org/2008/12/14/the-turley-armada-rules-the-waves/
If you want to see some serious trebuchets, check out the “Punkin Chunkin” in Delaware in approx 2 weeks. http://www.punkinchunkin.com/
I’m sorry, Alan, but did you just suggest that the Turley Trebuchet is not “serious”? It is strong enough to toss your worthless disease-ridden body from this blog and over the wall of some other blog, says I. Ok, perhaps I am a bit touchy.
St. Demetrius is pleased with the works of the Turley Trebuchet it is indeed an honor to be remembered in such sonter. NO ROTTING HUMAN CORPSE’s. That is bad for business. Please stay away from the Capitol as I am certain you will find more.
St. Demetrius
Tom:
All I can say is . . . Mr. Volokh tear this blog wall down. As for the arms race, we will not be the blog that pushes the Internet into a cyber Armageddon, but the Turley blog will insist on “trust but verify.”
Now, if we can only find a little castle . . .
10141 Daria Pl, Dallas, TX 75229
Way cool! It even has the Turley coat-of-arms. It is going to be the hit of the class.
Good Hunting! What does one attack with tin foil balls? Sand castles?
Here’s Hollywood’s version of the Turley-buchet (about 3:23):
History will reflect that this was the first step in the blawgs’ arms race. Next, Volokh will get one of those cannons made with a pipe and soda water, then Turley buys some of those Wrist-Rocket sling shots, next thing you know both blawgs are negotiating with unemployed Soviet nuclear physicists, for peaceful research, of course….