They frist strated doing this in the U.S. some were near baltimore M.D. [i live about 70 mi away] about 10 yrs or so ago its on the news now each yr and some of the corn mazes near me have there own throwers u can pay to use

hehe
that was almost in my backyard 

its fun to watch
that farmer grows those pumpkins especially for this event

I believe that there was a team from the usa also and they did pretty good
IF I am correct, they ended up on the second or thirtd place

haha yes indeed "onager"
I remember that name from the news

I really like to go watch to that you know
but names???
LOL

@ HurlinThom I guess you are from around to
can that be?

BommareZ wrote on Oct 4^th, 2010 at 5:50am:

Actually I'm from Los Angeles, way over on the far side of the USA. I do correspond with members of the "hurling community", which includes the guy responsible for Excalibur (not the owner, his employee at his engineering company).

I think every worthwhile throwing machine deserves a great name, or at least a unique one.

I'd like to attend the European Championships. Maybe if I start right now I can persuade my wife either to let me go or to plan a trip for us both.

Curious Aardvark wrote on Oct 4^th, 2010 at 8:06am:

An interesting point about cannon replacing trebuchets was made by Peter Vemming, who built the trebuchet at Warwick Castle. He said that the lack of a good source of saltpeter was a major factor in delaying the process. However, the Chinese, who used the earliest trebuchets used them to fling gunpowder bombs, so your idea is not at all farfetched.

In a way the nonsense of siege engines close to castle walls might make sense. The Hollywood concept of a catapult is such a travesty that one would not be able to throw very far anyhow. Of course your siege engineers would be within arrow range and wouldn't have a good survival rate, but that's the movie biz.

BTW, hometown enthusiasm was responsible for the declaration of a "world record". Measured in feet, meters, shaku, or arshins. The winning throw was far short of the 3091 foot record set by Chucky II in 2008. It beat the trebuchet record, but wouldn't be classified as a trebuchet under WCPC (World Championship of Punkin Chunkin)rules. OTOH, Excalibur did beat the trebuchet record. But the European championship doesn't break machines down by type as WCPC does.

http://www.punkinchunkin.com/records.htm

.

700 or so m is incidentally roughly one third of the way down my dirty old driveway... it's bugger all, really, and if someone was holding a camera perpendicular to the midpoint, it would come out looking pretty much as if it was taking place in my front yard

I understand in europe or britland 700m is the difference between one country and another but here, that's a distance I cover in 20 minutes with my 5 year old daughter every afternoon on our quiet family time walks.... certainly nothing serious.

Of course, the real issue is what is it about pumpkins that makes humans want to chuck them? Is it the loathing of famine food? Their natural cross country shape? I doknow once or twice a year we have so many up on my hill that we bowl em down the road... probably around 700m, or so . Extra points for the messiest impact

Poor pumpkins...they just want to be eaten ane loved!

Chugosh wrote on Oct 17^th, 2010 at 4:15pm:



Various seige engines existed because they filled needs. Trebuchets are really out of their element throwing light stuff like pumpkins; normally they would throw round stones in the 200 Kg range to break down walls and other masonry. Arrow-throwers like arbalests and springalds would be anti-personnel. There would be a few other types as well.

Thom