Floating Arm Trebuchet
- Floating Arm TrebuchetBelow are videos and images of a floating arm trebuchet I designed in Solidworks and built to enter the Illinois Institute of Technology 2010 Pumpkin Launch. I entered as an alumni team of one and competed against 7 student teams. While ineligible for prizes due to my alumnus status, the machine threw the farthest, besting the next closest team by over 110 feet, and placed third in the accuracy competition, actual distance thrown versus predicted distance.
The first video is of my second competition shot, as recorded with by a friend with an iPhone. A≈15lb pumpkin flew 331.4 ft for shot one (a new IIT record) and 329 ft for shot two, as launched by 358 lbs of counterweight. The machine is made primarily of thin-wall square steel tubing welded together using a Miller MIG setup. It was built in sections that come apart for transport and bolt together for launch.
The second video is a compilation of the competition, embedded from youtube.com
Following the videos are still images from the event. - The trebuchet, as designed in Solidworks
- Photographs from the 2010 Illinois Institute of Technology
Pumpkin Launch 
Prepping the launcher- Waiting for launch approval
- Preparing to release the counterweight
- Pumpkin away!
- Second Angle of Launch - Pumpkin is in mid-flight and visible in middle right of the photo
- Second Angle of Launch - Pumpkin is in mid-flight and visible in upper middle of the photo
- Second Angle of Launch - Pumpkin is in mid-flight and visible in upper right of the photo
- Second Angle of Launch - Pumpkin is in mid-flight and visible in middle right of the photo
- Second Angle of Launch - Pumpkin has just impacted the fence near the measuring crew
- Left to Right: IIT President John Anderson, Andrew Koning, Kyle Koning
- This image and caption were in the Winter 2011 IIT Magazine.
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