Hurling in Latin: Students Build a Trebuchet
My ninth grade Latin class, made up of Ellie Greer and John Makowski, collaborated with Cam McNall in the Innovation Lab to "crank up" some hands-on learning this winter. We constructed a fairly massive hurling device out of timber, using garage door springs as the source of power.
The dimensions: 6 feet tall by 4 feet wide, with a throwing arm of approximately 8 feet. It should be noted that this scale is drastically larger than the Lilliputian devices we constructed two years ago, which buckled under their own torsional strain. We dubbed our machine a trebuchet, which is not technically accurate, but neither is it a true catapult, since the throwing arm rotates past the perpendicular plane.
By definition, a trebuchet is a type of siege engine most frequently used in the Middle Ages. Its three distinguishing characteristics are:
Whatever, we're not purists - we just wanted to hurl stuff!
By definition, a trebuchet is a type of siege engine most frequently used in the Middle Ages. Its three distinguishing characteristics are:
- It is a compound machine—a combination of simple machines—which makes use of the mechanical advantage of a lever and is most often powered by the force of gravity.
- When it is fired, the force of gravity causes rotational acceleration of the attached throwing arm around the axle (the fulcrum of the lever).
- The sling containing the projectile transmits the forces generated at the end of the throwing arm to the projectile.
Whatever, we're not purists - we just wanted to hurl stuff!
The construction took about seven hours of class time, spread out over several months. The students were intricately involved in the design and construction. Lots of trial and error were involved!
The iLab crafting was balanced by some primary source exploration in Latin class. We perused Book X of De architectura by Vitruvius, who was a Roman civil and military engineer living in the first century before the Common Era. (He is the eponymous inspiration for da Vinci's famed schematic drawing of the "Vitruvian Man," by the way.)
Here's an excerpt from the Latin:
...nulla ballista perficitur nisi ad propositam magnitudinem ponderis saxi, quod id organum mittere debet.
No ballista [hurling device] is complete without consideration of the weight of the stone which the machine intends to throw. (X.xi.1, translation Lucey)
According to Ellie, "A lot of the time when spitballing about possible projects, people can come up with an idea like building a trebuchet, and while they think it would be totally awesome, they don’t think they’ll actually get to do it. But we actually got to do it, and it was totally awesome."
She continued, "It’s hard to describe the amount of pride and ecstasy you get when seeing a huge siege weapon you built hurl a basketball through the air. That was just awesome. Another highlight was seeing how the development progressed. During the early middle stages, progress wasn’t very apparent. But then we got to see it look more and more like the instrument of war it is."
As for the language aspect of this project, Ellie admitted, "We didn't know all the vocabulary in the Vitruvius, so we had to figure it out from stuff we already knew. We also did a lot of naming. We had to find words to describe the trebuchet and formulate our own labels for the different parts, like the Bracchium Iaciendī."
In the end, students and faculty had to devote some study hall time to complete the project and actually do some test firings. After adding a sling mechanism, we successfully launched a basketball close to 150 feet! We plan on incorporating the machine into Shore's end-of-year Field Day festivities, and who knows what else might get chucked in seasons to come...
Watch the test firings below!
She continued, "It’s hard to describe the amount of pride and ecstasy you get when seeing a huge siege weapon you built hurl a basketball through the air. That was just awesome. Another highlight was seeing how the development progressed. During the early middle stages, progress wasn’t very apparent. But then we got to see it look more and more like the instrument of war it is."
As for the language aspect of this project, Ellie admitted, "We didn't know all the vocabulary in the Vitruvius, so we had to figure it out from stuff we already knew. We also did a lot of naming. We had to find words to describe the trebuchet and formulate our own labels for the different parts, like the Bracchium Iaciendī."
In the end, students and faculty had to devote some study hall time to complete the project and actually do some test firings. After adding a sling mechanism, we successfully launched a basketball close to 150 feet! We plan on incorporating the machine into Shore's end-of-year Field Day festivities, and who knows what else might get chucked in seasons to come...
Watch the test firings below!
Many thanks to Ms. Salfity for her frequent contributions and technical support.
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Ready for launch
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Early in construction
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