Aiden’s school is having a science fair. When I mentioned this to Aiden his whole face and eyes lit up like I told him there was a second helping of grape leaves. When I mentioned that it was mandatory for 4th – 6th graders his face fell like I just took away Christmas.. When I explained that it was optional for 3rd graders he got excited all over again.

“So, we will ned to come up with a topic… ”

“I want to build a faster pitching machine.” He interrupted.

I thought about the old style machines with the spinning rubber disks that spit the ball out inelegantly… The I remembered the “Blue Flame” they used this summer. a Catapult! My son just came up with an excellent excuse for he and I to build a Trebuchet!

So we talked about it, and his hypothesis. and renamed the project a more science fair friendly “Does changing the length of a sling change the speed of a projectile launched from a Trebuchet”.

We searched for designs on-line and quickly decided not to make a full scale siege weapon. We settled on a Trebuchet with a 16″ arm. How To Build a Trebuchet.

This afternoon we got the wood from Home Depot, and started work on it: