95
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2026
95 points (94.4% liked)
Ask Lemmy
37547 readers
1961 users here now
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
What, do you think, would be the worst material from which to build a trebuchet and have it still function?
An excellent question!
Hmm, water would be a very difficult (though maybe possible) material to build with. If you used those long balloons, like for balloon animals, and filled those with water, that could make like a semi-rigid beam. Then it's just a matter of using the beams to make a structure, an arm, and a pivot point. You could use unfilled balloons as additional teather and possibly to make a pouch for holding your projectile.
To help with rigidity, after filling the water balloons, you could then spiral some duct tape around the entire length of the balloon, like wrapping grip tape around a hockey stick, that would keep the balloon from expanding unevenly or bending, it shouldn't flop all over.
Just to maintain the design themes, I imagine using this to fling water balloons exclusively at little sisters.
I just saw a short video of a mini trebuchet. It was made from thin wood, like 1" by 1" and a 5 gallon pail. You just let it go and two legs sticking up at about 45°, hit the ground and make it flip weirdly.Really chuck that sucker pretty far, whatever they threw.