What a great showing for Team Urban Siege at the 2010 World Championships of Punkin Chunkin. Owing to the team being scattered around New York and Massachusetts this fall, we didn't even get Medieval Postal Service out of storage until the day before we headed to Delaware. But the machine went right back up without a hitch, and fired beautifully right out of the gate. Test shots on Wednesday were around what later was found to be the 1150-1200 mark, and then heavy winds came for the weekend.
We managed a decent initial shot on Friday (1088') with the same 700 pound counterweight that hit 1076' in 2009. Video anaylsis shows our tuning was just a hair off. Saturday brought even heavier winds, and though we shot a denser, rounder pumpkin and were tuned closer to on the nose, the winds meant that the shot traveled to merely 1101'. In a last-ditch effort to shoot further, we managed to find a way to add 100 more pounds of counterweight (800 total). Medieval Postal Service was designed for only 600 pounds, though there was enough wiggle room that 700 pounds was aceptable, though we were running beyond the rating of our main wheels at that point. 800 pounds put us WAY beyond that, and also put us at the point that we anticipated the arm bending permanently.
As any that have been following know, we got off a perfect shot on Sunday. Perfect trajectory, great tuning, perfect pumpkin. Massive headwinds brought the distance down to 1309', but that was plenty for 6th place. Were it not for the wind conditions, we may well have hit our long-shot goal of 1500' on this machine. Keep in mind that this is one of the smallest-armed trebuchets in the competition, and one of the smallest counterweights as well. We make up for this with pure efficiency, around the 50% mark, most of the losses going to air resistance. The only trebuchet that comes CLOSE to this mark is the new Frist in Fright machine, around 45% as we understand.
On that note, a mention needs to be made of the amazing evolution of the trebuchet line in the last 2 years. Matt first went down to the chunk in 2007, and there was still a major gap between the top machines and the remainder of the field. Merlin was new that year, Pumpkin Hammer was having trouble, and of course there was Yankee Siege. But the rest of the field was still very weak. 6th place that year was under 500 feet. This year, that shot would have netted merely 13th place. There were 9 machines over 1000 feet in 2009, with Launch-Ness Monster missing by 29 feet. There were only 8 in 2010 despite the new Launch-Ness clearing 1000 feet due to the absense of King Arthur and the struggles of Merlin and Hokie Hurler.
2009 saw the first official 2000-foot shot by a trebuchet. 2010 saw 2 more teams miss that mark by mere feet (Pumpkin Hammer-1979, First in Fright-1920). Both of these machines figure to get there next year provided we don't get ugly winds again. First in Fright is a tiny machine, but with a VERY nice mechanism that provides the arm with massive acceleration right when the counterweight is bottoming out. This machine is more like a torsion machine than a trebuchet, and had the entire mechanical line marveling at the ingenuity.
There was also the new Launch-Ness Monster. We got to spend the weekend right next to these guys and their sea of green shirts. What a great crew, and a very unique machine that looks primed to break the 2000-foot mark next year now that the machine is put together. The machine looks like a mildly controlled implosion that a pumpkin shoots out of, but it shoots out very quickly. Their disqualified shot on Sunday went over 1600 feet despite the sling ripping apart during the shot.
Props to Team Shenanigans. They had a terrible misfire during Saturday morning free fire that resulted in the entire arm/hanger/carriage mechanism falling on the ground. We've been there, in 2008. Unfortunately for them, they bent and broke some parts, but with the assistance of other teams, they got it all back together for a shot on Sunday, which, while not perfect, was a great 1391'. They'll be back next year for sure.
A big shoutout to our other pit neighbors, Pumpkin Hammer, is also in order. These guys have been competing at the chunk since 2002, and have netted numerous 2nd and 3rd-place finishes, along with the well-documented struggles with the conversion to a whipper. This year they finally won, and darn near took out Yankee Siege's World Record along the way. Their winning shot of 1979' on Friday was with the least counterweight, they had poor tuning Saturday and a pin failure Sunday. But they won, and there isn't a team that deserved it more. They'll be back next year to defend.
What is Next for Team Urban Siege
We are looking to try to build a new trebuchet for 2011. Medieval Postal Service is beyond max capacity (we did indeed bend the arm a bit on the Sunday shot as expected) and takes way too long to set up and fire. As in 6-7 hours for a 3-person set-up from when we get on-site, and 30 minutes to reset for a shot. And the cocking is a pain with having to climb up and down the towers twice, lifting and lowing the chainfall, and so on. While we would love to build a world-champion machine, we are looking mainly for something that we need to spend less time setting up and more time firing, which is what is fun. It should still be reasonably competitive at the same time, based on the simulations we have done so far. That may not last for more than a year or two, but still, the competition is more about having a good time than winning. The trick is actually building a new machine. The team is split between Western New York and Eastern Massachusetts. We need somewhere to build, with appropriate equipment such as welders and steel saws and so on. Sponsorship to help build the machine would be great and probably necessary. We could also use some more team members, particularly ones that can help out with welding and/or construction space. Right now there is nothing in place to solve any of these issues, so it's not likely we will actually get a machine built for next year. Anyone that is interested in helping out in any way with Team Urban Siege is encouraged to drop us an email at info@teamurbansiege.com and we can talk from there. A place to build/test somewhere within an hour or two of Eastern Massachusetts would be ideal, but we will explore just about anything.
Happy Holidays everyone!
