Western Courier

Issue date: 10/21/05 Section: News

Media Credit: Art Self III Steve Catania, senior history major, built a trebuchet for an undergraduate History project. He used it to fling fast food Thursday at Hanson Field.

Despite the drizzling rain and permeating cold, crowds gathered near the throwing pit on Hanson Field track Thursday morning to watch Steve Catania, senior history major, and his small crew set up their contraption: a 1/3-scale model of the medieval siege weapon, the trebuchet.

On Thursday the mechanism was tested out by throwing pumpkins, cantaloupes, plastic jugs of water and, keeping with the First Year Experience book this year, "Fast Food Nation," food ordered from Wendy's and Taco Bell. While the fries from Wendy's were able to stay intact fairly well, the tacos fell apart in midair.

Initially starting out with a weight of 450 to 500 pounds, for the last two throws the crew added an additional 300 to 350 pounds to make the weight 800 pounds.

Supervising faculty adviser and associate history professor Lee Brice brought his FYE Western Civilization to 1648 class out to watch the machine in action, as did professor Georgia Tsouvala with her Western Civilization class. Others gathered as they passed by the crowd on their way to class.

Brice cautioned those standing outside the net around the throwing pitch, "There's a relatively good chance the trebuchet will shatter," he said.

He asked everyone to move back before the trebuchet launched a pair of jugs of water lashed together. The trebuchet did not shatter, but the bottles of water seemed to vaporize when they hit the ground several yards away.

While the different launches were being set up, Brice informed the crowd about original trebuchets and some of the things that Catania and his crew did to modify this trebuchet from the original model.

The trebuchet, which is basically a long throwing arm on a base, was used for centuries as armies laid siege to each others' towns and castles. It was a precursor to the catapult. The original engines sat on wheels and as Brice pointed out, would have had a much greater effect because they would be able to use all that leverage as well.

"Originally instead of the weights there, they would have had a weight box and in it they would have put whatever they had at their disposal to use, cows, dead bodies and sand to make the weight balance out," Brice said. He also commented on the difference between the catapult and the trebuchet.

Continued...

Page 1 of 3 next >

Article Tools