Pioneering Tip #7

-Going Medieval-

The Romans are attacking and you need to keep them away, you want to ransack the French castle, or maybe you just want to launch a pumpkin or water balloon at some of your friends, here's your chance to build your own artillery with rope and spars.

**Disclaimer:  I do not condone violence or torture, these projects are great for competitions and displays for special events**

Catapult:  The origins of catapults can be found in ancient Greek literature dating the project back to roughly 399 BC.  Today, we have tanks and other weapons, but you can build your own catapult to launch an "attack."

In the video shown, you see a simple catapult, the lashings used include:  Square lashings for the base frame and vertical frame, Diagonal lashings for the upright supports and the joints for the actual net, and a slightly loosened round lashing to attach the triangular launching piece to the frame.  The catapult also uses bug netting for the mesh to place the object being launched and ropes attached to the base of the launching mechanism that you pull to make the action happen.
Note:  You do see a lashing come undone, with projects like these, you can expect them to come loose after use and need to be retightened 



Trebuchet:  An improvement on the catapult is the trebuchet, this design tends to get better distance and may also use less supplies, maybe.

The design to the left is for a basic trebuchet design.  For the most part, the only lashings used are Square and Diagonal.  See if you can determine what type of lashings are useful here.










Cage:  Another basic project you can do is to build a cage for your captured enemies.  This project mostly consists of Square Lashings and a few Diagonal Lashings for support.  You can also add cord to go vertical or horizontal around/over the cage to seal it off (as long as you take away any knives/lighters from the captured and they don't have a taste for rope)

An important requirement for these projects is rotating joints.  A good way to do this is to use a Round lashing that is not tightened 100%.  This will create your joint for your catapult and door hinges.

Alright, tomorrow I'm going to go over a few knots (since I didn't want to make some of these project posts to long) and special rope coiling methods.

Fuse it, Lash it, Tie on!