Looking for a great weekend project to tackle with your kids? Look no further than Toolmonger schnaars‘ awesome “suburban siege” trebuchet. Unsatisfied with their original Lego and Connex models, he and his son switched to pine 1×2s and angle steel to build something a bit, well, more powerful.
From his kick-ass writeup in the Flickr pool:
It’s just a base and an A-frame with a bolt going through it. I used two bungee cords for the power, and you have to adjust them a bit to get the right amount of tension to throw something, but not so much it destroys the thing. The whole thing took about an hour to bang out. [...] I put two holes in the arm: one to give it a high arc throw and one to give it a line drive.
Does it work? Hells, yeah: “The nerf baseball on the bench goes about 75′ on both settings. Golf balls go about 100′ and roll forever.”
(Thanks to schnaars for the great CC-licensed photo — and sweet project!)