Trebuchet – Best of Weekend Projects

mp4 | 3gp |3g2 | iTunes | blip.tv

This week on the best of Weekend Projects with Bre Pettis, we join him in arms and learn how to make a trebuchet. With a trebuchet, you can smash your enemy’s castle or at least fling the heads of enemy spies into their courtyard. In the old days, the most important metric of a trebuchet is that it can fire farther than your enemy’s archers can shoot their arrows!

Trebuchet Big

In this podcast you’ll see how to build a paperclip trebuchet and a medium sized trebuchet. The paperclip trebuchet can be made in under an hour and it teaches you a lot about how they work.

The medium sized trebuchet took a little longer to cut, drill, and screw together, but it’s not hard.

Download the pdf for more instructions to make your own seige weapon!

16 thoughts on “Trebuchet – Best of Weekend Projects

  1. Aud1073cH says:

    For more trebuchet construction ideas, check out more photos of what MAKERS have submitted to the MAKE Photo pool.

    My treb is the one made with tongue depressor size craft sticks. It’ll throw a mouse ball 35 feet with 4.5lb of counterweight in its basket.

  2. paolo says:

    boohoohoo, what happenned to bré ? He’s such an awsome chap !

  3. Cory says:

    Trebuchet was the coolest thing I ever made with my dad. Ours was six feet tall, used a coffee can full of rocks, and flung a grapefruit the full length of the high school football field. Not sure if that’s further than an archer could shoot but I bet it’s further than an archer could project a grapefruit.

  4. TD says:

    It seems that it wouldn’t be too hard to convert a swing-set in a park into a trebuchet… Hmmmm.

  5. Mel Davis says:

    Check out the Trebuchet kit

    http://www.timberkitsus.com

  6. Mel Davis says:

    Ooops, forgot to say, they also have a Catapult and a Ballista

  7. Concerned says:

    3 months of reruns…

    Is Bre OK? Anything new coming soon?

  8. John Christensen says:

    I love the trebuchet! I started looking to build this when I decided that is wasn’t big enough. I haven’ finished it, yet, but I’m planning on building a full scale trebuchet. My goal it to launch a pumpkin the length of a football field. Thanks for getting me started!

Comments are closed.

Discuss this article with the rest of the community on our Discord server!
Tagged

ADVERTISEMENT

Maker Faire Bay Area 2023 - Mare Island, CA

Escape to an island of imagination + innovation as Maker Faire Bay Area returns for its 15th iteration!

Buy Tickets today! SAVE 15% and lock-in your preferred date(s).

FEEDBACK