Two Weeks Later
After finally getting my trebuchet back I still hadn’t learned my lesson completely. I bought my own beer and soda intending to drink the soda, and launch the beer. I brought my supplies to the place where my trebuchet now permanently resides. I also brought along several friends to help me turn the trebuchet so it was instead pointed at a much larger, and unused, helicopter pad.
As my friends and I were loading up the twelve pack I had bought, someone pointed out that it was a waste of perfectly good beer.
After a quick discussion and an informal poll, the beer launch was vetoed. So we loaded the soda instead. All four 2 liter bottles. We didn’t bother with ties or anything because the sling would hold them together nicely until about half a second after release. We all popped a beer and toasted the trebuchet dubbing it “Soda-Slayer”.
And the I pulled the firing cord.
Did I mention the four plastic soda bottles? The two liter ones.
Well they make a sound similar to a twelve ounce can of beer slamming into the side of a building.
Especially when they slam into the side of the self-same building.
In all our re-aiming and adjustments, we forgot to readjust the launching platform. What resulted was something similar to a “hook” in golf. The bottles flew the correct direction for about one nanosecond then proceeded to veer off in a beautiful arc before slamming into the roof of the headquarters building and exploding. I was told it sounded something like a cannon going off on the roof. They shook the whole building. The only thing that saved us was when the base commander came storming over, we saluted, and handed him a beer with the promise to clean up the mess and re-roof the building.
After that day I was permanently banned from my trebuchet. It is still sitting there though. It is slightly rusted and the sling is rotted, but a little loving care and an new sling and it will be ready for more soda/beer slinging action.
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August 20th, 2008 at 9:19 am
May I suggest moving to more solid ammunition? Tomatoes, perhaps? (potatoes are just too hard, unless you cook them first..but that’d be a waste of good potential mashed potatoes)
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August 20th, 2008 at 9:22 am
this is a good example of why its a good idea to always have extra beer
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ineedhelpbad reply on August 20th, 2008 11:19 am:
I dont think extra beer would have helped maters any.
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barry reply on August 20th, 2008 11:56 pm:
sure it does they had enough to offer the base commander one
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August 20th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
For those of you wondering, reroofing the building wasn’t hard. Tis was one of those buildings with a concrete roof topped with gravel and tar. We stripped the old gravel from the area of impact, regravelled and retarred. The base commander is now retired, but the funny part is his new hobby. He recreates, in miniature, midieval battles. Complete with treubuchets.
Captcha: reffering status – Midway between a medal and an Article 15
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Snyarhedir reply on March 18th, 2011 11:26 pm:
Obviously he wondered why you found it so fun.
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August 20th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Wait–doesn’t it have wheels? Couldn’t you just drive it home?
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August 20th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Dibs on the trebuchet then. Where is it? (I’m surprised no one else has thought to call dibs on it.)
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August 20th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
So they’ve banned you from that treb. Have they banned you from building another?
T.
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August 20th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Any device that can shake an entire HQ building with just four bottles of soda is clearly Far Too Awesome.
And you got my wife and I in tears again.
Captcha: Anger Lieutenants – what a well-adjusted trebuchet does!
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August 21st, 2008 at 12:24 am
OH MY GOD!!!!!
You’re 2 fer 2…Good shooting, true and faithful warrior.
Captcha = CottaPurdy favor = WTF?
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August 21st, 2008 at 12:26 am
Captcha = 31.61 Benjamin
What a Benjamin will be worth in another year or so.
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August 21st, 2008 at 7:48 am
Nowadays, of course, someone would just steal the trebuchet to sell as scrap. :/ Poor siege engine.
captcha: in bedlam
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May 5th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Captcha: vipers Romance – A dangerous proposition at the best of times!
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March 18th, 2011 at 11:23 pm
You should have aimed for something not even in the general direction/trajectory of that building! Better yet, you should have taken the trebuchet itself far away and test-fired it elsewhere, where there would be no ramifications. Even if you would have to take it all the way out into a desert, it would be worth it.
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David B reply on March 5th, 2014 10:48 am:
Ah, but where is the fun in that? I prefer guessing where my projectiles are going to go. (I have one that I built in woods during middle school about way back when.)
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