Free Republic

Have you ever sat down and thought “I wonder if a trebuchet could launch a projectile at supersonic speeds?” Neither have we. That’s what separates [David Eade] from the rest of us. He didn’t just ask the question, he answered it! And he documented the entire build in a YouTube video which you can see below the break. How fast is fast? How about a whip-cracking, sonic-booming speed in excess of 450 meters per second! How’d he do it? Mostly wood and rubber with some metal bits thrown in for safety’s sake. [David]’s video explains in full all of the...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Trump excitedly unveiled his latest improvements to the White House Press Briefing Room at Monday night's press conference: ejection seats. Controlled by a panel on Trump's podium, the ejection seats allow him to instantly send any White House reporter on a free trip to somewhere a few hundred yards down Pennsylvania Avenue. Any journalist parroting Chinese propaganda, insulting the president, or asking a question without referring to Trump as "His Majesty Donald Trump May He Live Forever" is likely to get a free flight courtesy of the White House. "Mr. President, why do you hate AmericaaaaaaaaAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!" screamed one reporter...

An archaeological dig has unearthed new evidence of a three-day attack on Edinburgh Castle - on a site earmarked for a luxury hotel by Sir Richard Branson. Experts believe they have found a carved stone which would have been fired from a giant catapult during the pivotal siege in 1296. It led to Edward I seizing control of the medieval fortress, plundering its treasures and shipping them to London, and the castle being held under English rule for 18 years. Archaeologists made the discovery at the site of the proposed new Virgin Hotel, which is earmarked for a large swathe...

Let's get this out of the way: England's King Edward I was an ass. You may remember Longshanks from his villainous turn in Braveheart. Tall, forbidding, and bad-tempered, the 14th century monarch stomped his Welsh neighbors in submission, taxed the Irish into poverty, and stole money from his Jewish subjects, killing many of them and expelling the rest. When he was done with that he engineered a takeover of Scotland using tactics that would make Machiavelli blanch, including inflicting an unbelievably cruel death upon the leader of the Scots, William Wallace, that's familiar to movie fans.

Workers at a Google data center combined 12 century know how and space age technology to trigger a medieval weapon that was used to hurl rocks, balls of fire and dead animals over castle walls. They used an Android cellphone, a computer the size of a credit card and a Blue Tooth receiver to trigger the wooden weapon, known as a trebuchet, during the first "Storm the Citadel Trebuchet Competition" in Charleston over the weekend. The trebuchet was used during medieval times to break down fortifications. "They also threw dead people," said Dennis Fallon, dean of engineering at The Citadel,...

I found a disc I thought I'd lost when I moved. These shots are from October of 2004, grandson Gerry built a trebuchet for the school science fair. The project was approved in advance but when Gerry started setting up, and they realized what a trebuchet is, they confiscated his tennis balls, LOL In the last shot you can see a ball headed downrange, up in the top right corner.

Amid the hustle and bustle that is Christmas, I just wanted to make a couple of politics-neutral observations. First, my wife and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary on Tuesday, so we hired a babysitter and, in an all-to0-rare move, went on a date. Because we’re so rarely on our own, it took us some time to decide what to do with our freedom. We opted on a nice dinner, a little shopping, and a movie. Our second big question, then, was what to see. Again, we rarely go to the movies, and we wanted to pick the best show...

HUGO, Minn.- Four Minnesota friends fashioned a medieval catapult to fling a variety of objects -- such as wheelchairs and obsolete appliances -- into the sky, they said. The men, all in their 30s, built a trebuchet -- a catapult originally designed in the Middle Ages to hurl objects at castle walls -- the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press reported Sunday. The trebuchet was built by Kurt Modert, of Hugo; Roger Bacon, of White Bear Lake; Ryan Krueger, of Maple Grove; and David Proehl, of New Hope -- all municipalities in Minnesota -- the newspaper said. They're catapulting items like...

PHOENIX — Immigration authorities are flying illegal immigrants deep into their native Mexico from Southern Arizona to discourage dangerous crossings in triple-digit desert heat. The twice-daily flights from Tucson to Mexico City are intended to keep immigrants away from border towns where they would likely run into smugglers who want to sneak them back into the U.S. "This is where the probability of losing their lives can really increase. We offer that opportunity for them to get out of that cycle," John Torres, a special adviser to the assistant secretary of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Monday in Tucson....

MALAYSIA has come up with the world's first comprehensive guidebook for Muslims in space as its first astronaut prepares to go into orbit next week. The book, Guidelines for Performing Islamic Rites at the International Space Station, teaches the Muslim astronaut how to perform ablutions, determine the location of Mecca when praying, prayer times, and how to fast in space, the Star newspaper reported. "The reason we formulated guidelines for Muslims in space is because we wanted to ensure our astronaut could fully concentrate on his mission, without having to worry about how he should perform his religious obligations in...

GREENFIELD – It was a rough ending to the first weekend of the annual pumpkin flinging season by the Yankee Siege when one of the medieval weapon's main operators was injured in an accident. Chuck Willard of Hancock, who climbs the 55-foot high boom on the trebuchet dozens of times a day during the fall-flinging season, was knocked unconscious about 2:30 p.m. yesterday when the boom from the trebuchet, a catapult-like device that uses counterweight to hurl pumpkins nearly 300 yards, struck him in the chin. "He was out for about two minutes," said an employee at the Yankee Siege...

Another toy to waste your time. http://www.globalspec.com/trebuchet/

Remember the Trebuchet, the original siege engine?It's back and ready to put your physics muscles to the test. Custome build your "Treb" to take on three seperate challenges: Distance, Accuracy and Power. GlobalSpec Treb Challenge