Ah. Hi it's Tod from Tod's Workshop and Tod Cutler here back with the trebuchet.
So today we are just going to tune it, we're going to make sure the sling releases at the
right point and then the fun begins, so let's start in a good way. Loose!
That'll do, that was nice but the thing is i can't see it from the side because I'm right next to it.
Now I'm going to have a quick look at that footage and see at what angle that sling releases the
ball. Now that's important because as we all know, if you throw something flat on a low trajectory
it doesn't go as far as if you throw it at a nice good trajectory, but equally you throw it too high
and it doesn't go as far as that one, so we've got to work out how to throw it. Now the length of the
sling and the angle of the pin on the end of the arm help change that, so I need to look at the
camera work and just see from the side because I can't tell that right next to the machine,
what angle it's releasing at. Now let's do that, we'll have another throw and see if I
can improve things. I've had a look at the footage now of the first one and I couldn't
quite make it out because I'm on a little tiny camera screen, should have brought a laptop.
I think it's releasing a little early, so I've extended the sling length by about 20 centimeters
that'll hold the ball for a little bit longer. Fingers crossed, it'll go a bit further,
but I've got a marker out there on the first ball so we should be able to see what happens;
so here we go again. Shot number two. Loose!
Ah ha, I think, I'm not certain, I think that went less
so I'm going to actually shorten the sling for the next one. Anyway I'll go and have a look,
I'll have a look at the footage, we'll go again. I'm going to go for the third shot now,
I've really been trying to see the release angle on on the camera that I set there but the screen's
just too small, it's I don't know just can't do it, so I've swapped it out now with a a Wimius,
which some guy called Tony Kractus, I don't know him but I think last time I killed a GoPro,
Graham ii probably, he very kindly put one in the post to me so that's now running on 120 frames
and when I get back home and I can review it, I'll be able to see what's happening, but I think last
time I shot it, it went a bit lower, didn't go quite as far actually about five meters shorter,
but I think it went lower, so I've adjusted the pin angle back so it releases a bit sooner
and well we're going to see what happens. So this time I'm standing off to the side so I'm
really going to try and work out from my own eyes what's going on, so here we go and loose!
Oh nice nice nice nice oh lovely! Right I think from first off I think that went
a little bit further so I'm gonna walk out we'll have a look but also in terms of the angle that's
you know it's kind of a little bit difficult for me to tell but the angle was certainly around
about right I'd say 40,45 degrees, so well let's have a look. I've come in a bit closer now, I'm
letting the Wimius on 120 frames do the looking so I can look back later. I'm not going to do it now,
but I'm still sort of fairly side on I'll get a good idea about what's happening. But while we're
talking about what you can see, a lot of you have asked for a full wide so you can see the release
of the arm the release of the shot the trajectory and then the impact. It's actually you know the
first couple of shots I did for you today, I did that but it's really hard because the camera has
to be so far back and unfortunately I've got this big green block of darkness behind the machine,
hopefully you'll see something, but anyway here we go, the fourth shot. Finger angle has gone back a
little bit again so it should go even higher this time I'm hoping because I think it might
have been a bit flat but it's really difficult for me to tell, anyway here we go looking.
Oh nice lovely lovely lovely I think actually that has gone a bit further,
so I'll go out, I'll have a look at that, yeah and then we'll decide what to do, any adjustments
further right, here we go. So I've shot four balls, I've messed around with the trajectory
and every time I mess around with it, I've made it worse, yeah what do I know? So the last one
that I did actually the trajectory was the least of all of them so I'm going to set it back the
way it was before, this nearest post, probably eight, ten meters in front of the furthest one
and we'll just do that because you know, when I'm done with this bit, I just want to have fun.
I've put all the adjustments back the way they were at the beginning or so I think they were
and I'm just going to do one test shot now, so I know where it lands
because next time this one comes out we're going to go bowling, ten pin bowling.
I just love this machine, I just love it, it's it's awesome and I think that one
went further, it's really hard to tell, but anyway we'll find out soon.
I'm really sorry I messed up the audio on that one again; I've got a new mic system I'm not used to,
but I was about to show you the mark 1 version of the camera dart and without seeing that footage
you're not going to know what's going on, you're not going to follow the rest of the story as we
develop, so I'm just going to show you some stills from that, do a little bit of a talk over so you
know what's going on and then we're going to get back to the film with the mark ii. There
are period illustrations of trebuchets loaded with giant darts but this one will have a GoPro
in it and you can see the hook where the throwing cord attaches and slips off at the release point,
the idea is to protect the camera and let it film a fairly stable shot.
As you can see for this first throw it only has the case installed,
not the camera. The wide loop on the end of the cord will slip off the hook on the dart very
cleanly and easily. I've never shot a dart from a trebuchet before so there's plenty to go wrong.
Oh look, I appear to be pleased. I'm back with some extra thoughts at the end of that last film,
so the first thing is the design of the GoPro dart. Well what happened I didn't show you on
the film is that it landed beautifully, landed straight down and I don't really know what I was
thinking, I thought that the GoPro in the case would be all right. Luckily I didn't put the
GoPro in it for that shot, the case absolutely mutilated, I mean look at these photos here,
absolutely destroyed, extruded extruded the soil right through the lens of the case into the case
where the GoPro would have been, so that would have been, well Graham 5th would be here today,
so luckily that didn't happen. So I've redesigned the dart so I've got now a big sort of baffle ring
on the front here and a bit of a distance. The idea is that when that hits the soil now it's
not going to extrude and compact the soil up into where the GoPro is. Clearly I'm going to try that
again, so we're going to do a shot now and we're going to do a shot with our new mark ii dart.
However what you need to know is there is, and this is not some fake jeopardy moment for tv,
there is a very, very real possibility of that machine destroying itself. Why do I say that? Well
I said in the first part of this film that I was going to go and review the
footage of the angles and and make sure that everything was working as it should.
I looked at that footage and I looked, I noticed for the first time, because when I'm standing
here, I see I'm looking at the projectile, I'm not looking at the machine and so this time
I looked at the machine and the amount of energy left in that basket, in that counterweight,
was just horrific and I've inspected the A-frames on the machine again and it is again knocking
against the A-frames and chewing itself up. So what's going on? Well what you need to remember
is that this machine was designed for the Age of Empires 4 computer game launch,
very specific set of parameters and Jem Stansfield who did the engineering calcs on this,
brilliant job at it and it did exactly what he said it would. For a three to 10 kilo weight it
was throwing around about 80 odd meters with a 240 kilo counterweight. That's not what I'm doing now,
I've gone up, you know why stay small? Go big! But the problem is the dimensions of the ratios
of the arm, the short arm length to the long arm length, they're all wrong now, they're all wrong
and it's not transferring the energy into the shot and if the energy's not going into the shot,
the shot doesn't go so far, well you know bummer, but the other thing about it is that that energy
has to get dissipated through the frame of the machine. It was never designed for that and
there is a very, very real possibility it's just going to shake itself apart, rip itself apart.
So I've actually booked some camera people here today for a bit of a special film,
so I can't cancel it today, so I'm just doing this one shot now, I'm going to cross my fingers,
we'll run the rest of the day and then the next one is I've got to put an extension on that
arm and I can do it, I can just put a meter long bolt-on section on the end and that is
going to be the next up. Hopefully it'll save my machine, hopefully it'll get it to throw further,
hopefully we can carry on this series, but like I said last time, if it does blow up you know, okay,
okay my heart is gonna be a little bit broken, but I'll rebuild the thing. You get to see it,
I get to see it, I get to rebuild it, YouTube gold, brilliant, but before we do that our dart
is gonna go on its last flight. Maybe the machine will survive, maybe it won't, here we go and I'll
see you next time. Right fingers crossed, this could be epic, let's hope so, well let's hope not.
Whoa
Machine survived, dart absolute rubbish - back to the drawing board.