High Speed Video - Floating Arm Trebuchet

Videos of a miniature (tabletop sized) floating arm trebuchet (F2k) firing several shots. Video recorded with a Casio EX-FH20 at 210, 420, and 1000 FPS. Sorry about the drop in resolution that accompanies the increase in frame rate--I'm sure the camera still has a fun time keeping up with all those pixels.

Trebuchet stands approximately 15" tall, uses 200g of lead shot counterweight in the 2 boxes built for that purpose. Normally fires weighted pencil erasers, but in this case was just throwing unmodified ones (they'll show up as yellow specks in the video).

Maximum throw distance recorded is 16.4 meters, or ~54 feet.

The trebuchet was designed by me, though I was inspired by pictures and videos of other F2k's I'd seen online. Construction is primarily laser-cut basswood, with some plywood used for wheel disks, and balsa for the long end of the throwing arm.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• f2k
• f2000
• floating
• arm
• trebuchet
• casio
• ex
• fh
• 20
• ex-fh20
• fh20
• physics
• high
• speed
• video
• photography
• projectile
• throw
• engineering

[DCH972]

@Makos313 IIRC, the arm was ~12 inches long total, with about 8-9 inches on the sling side of the pivot, and 3-4 on the counterweight side. The sling was about 10 inches long when doubled over.

[Makos313]

About how long was the arm and sling?

[hitoomats]

thanks! that really helped alot!

[CBasement]

That was great. I recently bought a Casio FH-20. Good to see what it can do with trebuchets. I've got a few I want to film at high speed.