design the FAT

Have been Emailing back and fourth with my oldest son about our plans for the floating arm trebuchet. Giving ideas back and fourth. Here is one of his CAD drawings.


Having discussions as to the best height of the track and the distance between the weight and wheels. I wanted to have the wheels start on the track, but given some thought, that would make the mechanical advantage fairly low. With the wheels starting above, and the arm resting on another wheel on the frame, this will make the wheels arrive onto the track on a tangent, rather than slapping right down, it took me some thought and sketches to believe that it would work that way.

Watched the pumpkin chunkin championships last night on the Science Channel. These were great! I will never have the time or money to go to that level, but what the heck, small is good.

We can start doing some work on this in the next few weeks