Supersonic Trebuchet
Ok so when you woke up this morning, you probably didn’t expect to watch a 20-minute video about a trebuchet — but to be fair, I didn’t either. But Tom Stanton’s build of a fully mechanical trebuchet that propels a tiny plastic pellet faster than the speed of sound (complete with tiny sonic boom) is genuinely fascinating to watch.
He starts with a basic plan, but as he builds & tests, there are all sorts of problems (weight, strength) that he needs to overcome. The final product is impressive, but it’s the process that’s most interesting to me. What a gift these sorts of videos are…you could sometimes find process-heavy shows on PBS (like How to Create a Junk Food) when I was a kid, but if I’d had access to stuff like the supersonic trebuchet video (and all those Lego engineering videos), I’d have probably wanted to grow up to be an engineer.
Comments 2
As a mechanical engineer into high performance things, I loved this video. It’s an excellent example of real-world iterative engineering solving a challenging problem, clearly and concisely explained.
https://bsky.app/profile/kottke.org/post/3msy3vteghw22
Incredible. Like you said, I didn't expect I would watch a 20-minute video of this thing, and here I am. The wonders of science and technology.
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