Seems like such an advance in this ancient technology. It would be really cool to see it applied in interesting ways.

I really wonder just how effective this could be as a defense system .. the mind wanders with every update Tom makes .. I imagine an aiming/targetting system would make this an effective, easily replenished, low-resource weapon system for some applications. Attacking feral animals, perhaps?

How could an auto-loader work for this .. I'm sure there's a means.

Another thing that I keep thinking about, is whether this would be an effective way to launch seed-bombs, or deal with avalanche conditions on a mountain without requiring fire-arms training.

A truly fascinating bit of engineering. I hope to see it evolve into an effective delivery mechanism.

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nkrisc an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I don’t think this has much practical application as an entire system. Nor is it supposed to. It was built just to achieve and artificial goal with arbitrary constraints. That doesn’t make it any less cool or interesting, but that doesn’t make it useful.

Some of the features he used are pretty cool though, like varying the winding drum diameter to vary the delivered torque over the course of the weight drop.

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andrewflnr an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> without requiring fire-arms training.

You'd need trebuchet training instead, which is probably not better in the long run. I bet there's still lots of ways to kill/mangle yourself with one of these, especially once you've been around them long enough to get casual and sloppy.

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red_admiral 32 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> deal with avalanche conditions

Swiss solution: chuck some explosives out of a helicopter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H519qhLnRtM (start at 1:20)

(In the image at https://swisshelicopter.ch/de/aktuelles/721-lawinensprengen-... the explosive pack says "do not eat". I'm not reassured that we need this warning for people allowed to handle that.

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toasty228 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Or we can just accept it as a cool gimmick, we don't have to kill animals with supersonic trebuchets really

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gattr 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I also loved the video. But I'd think if one wanted to deploy "simple" mechanical projectile weapons at scale, pneumatic launchers would be easier, more compact and more reliable (way less cool-looking and operating, though!).

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gcanyon 37 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I think the cycle time on this would be far superior to a pneumatic system: cycling this system effectively means lifting ~100 pounds ~8 feet, which a reasonably fit person (who could reach that high) could do several times a minute for extended periods.

He got an efficiency over 40% (if memory serves, I watched this video yesterday) -- I wonder between pumping and discharge how efficient a pneumatic system would be, but I can't imagine that it's higher.

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genewitch 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

like a potato cannon?

I helped design the "reloadable" part of a golf-ball shooter that used acetylene as the accelerant. I don't think it went supersonic, though. There's videos (embarassing ones) on youtube. He eventually designed one that can shoot full cans of monster energy hundreds of yards.

the reason i bring it up is we used to design and build pneumatic ones, that could send C and D batteries thousands of feet if you arced it right. that was with ~125psi, we always wanted to build out to 200+ psi, but instead went into accelerant-based cannons and he got a job doing machine drawing with autocad. the rest is history.

edit: https://nextcloud.projectftm.com/index.php/s/cobra5x we show off the part i designed, toward the end on the "reload" - he designed and built the entire thing.

	▲	qwery an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Sorry to be a bore [that's a firearms joke], but -- while I encourage everyone and their family to experiment with building such devices, with safety in mind of course, it is a lot of fun -- please don't dispose of your old batteries in the natural environment! Really not trying to call you out here, as a teenager I once had the idea to load up my marble cannon with dead AAs (they're free!) and got a "do you really think that's a good idea?" from an environmentally conscious adult when I went asking for dead batteries.

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monster_truck an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Basically anyone can go buy a pellet rifle that will easily and consistently clear 1500fps. They're still pretty cool, and will go through both doors of a car

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MomsAVoxell 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I dunno, takes a lot of energy to get a pneumatic system up to the same speeds that this trebuchet can accomplish. I see it really as a super-efficient machine requiring very little effort to load ..

But yeah, the fact that it's super cool looking - and sounding - is a key factor in my willingness to play with one too, one day. ;)

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jijijijij 43 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think the only real advantage of this, compared to gas driven projectiles, is the lack of need for gas sealing and explosion resistance of the projectile. The projectile is accelerated much more gently. You can launch combustible, rather fragile and irregularly shaped projectiles. That said, I don't think there is much need for supersonic exit velocities for most scenarios. Maybe you could use it for impact testing without introducing a gas blast or the need of a gas sealing delivery vehicle. But I don't think you would opt for a gravity powered, purely mechanical device then.

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zellyn 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Drone defense? :-)

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monster_truck 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

All of these things are thoroughly solved problems with embarrassing levels of cost effectiveness, far from interesting.

Please keep your thinly veiled murder fantasies to yourself