The Sideways Catapult

This is an interesting little catapult project. I found myself thinking about catapults and how very standardized they are. Well for the most part every catapult has the swing arm going down the center of mass of the whole frame. And this does make sense. It keeps the catapult very stable. This is probably the optimal design for a catapult. That swing arm does generate a lot of force.

But I still found myself wondering what a catapult would be like if the swing arm were oriented differently. So I built a small catapult with the swing arm sideways. I have some pictures and pointers on this catapult and I also have a video at the bottom of this page.

The big difference here is that the swing arm is not center of mass of the overall design. It is mounted sideways. You can see that on the left angle upright is where the swing arm pivots. And all the way out on the right is the cup for the projectile (crumpled piece of paper).

here is a better look:

This view gives you a really good look at how the configuration of the swing arm is really sideways.

Here is the sideways one right alongside a regular one. In this view you can really see the difference.

Anyway, It is an interesting experiment and there are some nice things about it.

This following picture gives you a closer look at some of the parts of the catapult.

The pivot is what the swing arm pivots on. I drilled a hole in the swing arm and a hole in the angled upright. I then pushed a wooden dowel through it and glue the dowel to the angled upright. The swing arm moves freely on this dowel.

The Stop peg is what stops the swing arm in its forward motion. When the swing arm hits this it is stopped and the projectile flies out of the green cup.

The blue dots are just drawn on the picture. They show that you could have a series of partially drilled holes and you could move the stop peg into any hole to change the angle the projectile is fired at.

It is important to keep the rubber band within the structure of catapult. You would get more force if you attached it further out on the swing arm nearer the green cup but this causes even more imbalance.

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Table of Contents for this tutorial

BACK TO THE CATAPULT MAIN PAGE

1. Make the Table Top Troll Catapult Home and materials requred
2. Begin assembly of the sides and base
3. Assemble the catapult firing arm
4. Complete the assemblly and finish by painting
5. Video of this catapult firing
6. Books/Medieval store
7. DVD's Documentaries about siege engines
8. Free Catapult Plan

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