{"id":347,"date":"2012-01-03T17:01:36","date_gmt":"2012-01-03T22:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jetmore.org\/john\/blog\/?p=347"},"modified":"2012-03-27T13:38:22","modified_gmt":"2012-03-27T17:38:22","slug":"little-siege-engines-and-little-girls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jetmore.org\/john\/blog\/2012\/01\/little-siege-engines-and-little-girls\/","title":{"rendered":"Little Siege Engines and Little Girls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last March I followed a link to the “Trebuchette” project on Kickstarter<\/a> – “the snap-together, desktop trebuchet”. \u00a0I hadn’t used Kickstarter before but the Trebuchette project comtained more than enough awesomeness potential and I backed the project. \u00a0I had a slight disconnect after the project closed funding because I hadn’t really grasped that there would be a non-trivial delay between funding and shipping. \u00a0However, the frequent, informative posts from the project owners actual gave me a great deal of pleasure to read as they worked through the realities of building a physical-goods business.<\/p>\n

The Trebuchette kits arrived right after Thanksgiving. \u00a0Since Christmas break was right around the corner I decided to put the kits on a shelf and wait until the second week of break when my daughters would be bored out of their skulls. \u00a0This plan sort of worked – they did ultimately enjoy them, but I made the mistake of telling them what the kit was when I got it and I had to fend off requests to put them together early every couple of days for a month.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

BUT! \u00a0A good day for it finally rolled around and I sat down with Mary (5) and Ellie (3) to put the kit together.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The packaging looked great and also seemed to do a good job protecting against shipping abuse<\/p><\/div>\n

My original project backing level got me two kits. \u00a0They arrived in one USPS flat-rate mailer. \u00a0The mailer was very, very damaged when it got to me with at least two of the corners having been ripped open. \u00a0I was worried about the safety of the kits themselves, but there wasn’t a scratch on them, the packaging worked great.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

I suppose we can excuse a few scorch marks. After all, they are being cut with FRICKIN LASER BEAMS!<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The girls had way too much fun peeling the tape off.<\/p><\/div>\n

The quality of the cuts on the pieces is really\u00a0phenomenal. \u00a0Every cut is crisp and seemingly perfect. \u00a0The finish on the wood is protected from scorching by a tape covering that had to be removed. \u00a0I’m not going to lie here, I think the girls’ favorite part of the build stage was peeling the tape off the pieces. \u00a0I don’t think this was in the original project plan but at the end of the build they had a ball of tape about the size of a baseball that they threw around for a couple of days.<\/p>\n

The design of the snap-together joints was, frankly, amazing. \u00a0By making small “relief” cuts around the sockets the designers nailed the perfect joint – enough “springiness” that you could seat the pieces fairly easily, but enough firmness that there is no wiggle in the assembled piece. \u00a0In fact, these joints were so easy to put together that there’s not much more to tell about building. \u00a0I expected the build process to be slightly more difficult with the girls but Mary put almost all of the joints together herself, with a little help with the final seating.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

I was not a big fan of this connection...<\/p><\/div>\n

The only really concerning part of the build was connecting the arm to the weight bucket. \u00a0Even with a bit of relief cut around the socket this was an incredibly firm connection. \u00a0If I had not had two kits (read: “spare parts”) I probably would have stopped working on it and spent some time googling this step. \u00a0As it was I pushed through and it did seat, though there was the sound of wood cracking when I seated it. \u00a0The cracking doesn’t seem to have done anything structural, I can’t see any cracks, but it was a bit disconcerting.<\/p>\n

The design of the kit that I was shipped changed some from their original design. \u00a0They announced these changes ahead of time, but they didn’t mean anything to me. \u00a0Now that I have played with the kit I definitely appreciate the ones I can see. \u00a0These changes include how the side-supports connect to the uprights, the stand-offs between the uprights and the main axle, and the joint relief cuts I mentioned above. \u00a0All of these changes seem well thought out.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The builders with their new siege engine<\/p><\/div>\n

My builders really enjoyed making the project, but to be honest I’m still not sure they really understood what it was supposed to be. \u00a0To the hallway!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Loading...<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Fire!<\/p><\/div>\n

Firing it was pretty amazing. \u00a0The girls loved the mechanism, and it’s incredibly gratifying to fling a rubber ball that far. \u00a0The experience was marked by an almost constant litany of “watch your head”, but it worked because no one got hurt. \u00a0By the end Mary was able to load and fire it herself which was pretty awesome. \u00a0Ellie was able to fire it after being helped to load it. \u00a0Ellie enjoyed the act of firing it, but Mary was really taken with it as a mechanism. \u00a0She really enjoyed playing with the release mechanism, the pouch position, and the number of weights to see how it would change how far the ball went.<\/p>\n