Blog
Posted by Matt
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Tags:
launches, WCPC
You heard it here! Team Urban Siege's new mystery trebuchet shot a nearly 9-pound pumpkin a whopping 2017 feet today! With a trebuchet field littered with misfires and pies, that placed us in second place after day 1. American Chucker edged us out with a 2032' shot, 2 feet shy of Yankee Siege's "World Record" mark of 2034'. Congratulations to those guys indeed. Our shot was somewhat high in trajectory, but nevertheless we became only the 3rd trebuchet IN THE WORLD to clear 2000 feet in competition. We have more in the tank, and we are gunning for a bigger mark tomorrow!
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| Nov 04, 2011
Posted by Matt
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Tags:
WCPC
The field is mostly filled now for the 2011 World Championships of Punkin Chunkin. We fired a total of 4 times today. All went forward, though the first two broke small chunks off of the punkin. We discovered a small issue with our sling, fixed that, and the last 2 shots went out cleanly. Unfortunately, on the second shot of the day we slightly bent our counterweight axle (we had added more counterweight), but we solved that with the addition of a couple of strips of wood for the boxes to land on instead of bending the axle so bad. Things looked no worse on the last 2 shots. Those shots were a bit high in trajectory, but not terribly, and we shall see what tomorrow brings.
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| Nov 03, 2011
Posted by Matt
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Tags:
WCPC, news
Team Urban Siege's new machine made it down to the field in Delaware for the 26th World Championships of Punkin Chunkin this morning around 9AM. Unlike Medieval Postal Service, this new machine only took us a couple hours to set up, and this was the first time we did a full set up on it straight through. It promises to get even easier in the years to come. We were inspected and ready to fire by early afternoon, but a hold on firing kept us from firing until late in the afternoon. We only had 2 shots all-time with this machine at this point, though both were terrific 1600-1700 foot shots (we didn't find one, the other was slightly downhill so getting a realistic distance is hard).
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| Nov 02, 2011
Posted by Matt
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Tags:
news, WCPC
That's right folks. Chunkin time is here! Team Urban Siege finally finished work on our new trebuchet to the point where we could fire it. Last Sunday, October 23, 2011, at 2PM we pulled the trigger for the first time on this new machine. And it fired perfectly! We broke a strap on our old and very worn pouch that we'd been using for 3 years (and in hindsight it did get hung up pretty bad on the last chunk of 2010), but the punkin flew out beautifully. We then moved the machine (mostly assembled) to a more suitable location for hurling (that first shot was taken right next to the shop we were working out of) at Wendel's Poultry Farm. The second shot came roughly an hour later than the first, and with the backup pouch, we got a near carbon-copy of the first shot. Tuning was beautiful for both shots! And best of all, the machine was operating smoothly and nothing major was broken. Only one small feature was found to be a bit weak, and by the time of this post, the issue has long been rebuilt in a much more sturdy way.
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| Oct 30, 2011
Posted by Matt
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Tags:
news, launches, WCPC
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.
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| Dec 12, 2010
Posted by Matt
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Tags:
launches, WCPC
The final day of the 2010 World Championships of Punkin Chunkin saw major winds kill the distances of many teams, but there were still some nice shots. In the trebuchet division, none of the top 3 machines from Day 2 shot any further, although First in Fright shot a solid 1815' into a stiff headwind. Tired Iron also shot less, so 1443' was his top shot. Shenangians recovered from a disasterous free fire shot Saturday morning that resulted in missing the day 2 shot and popped a 1391' shot into the wind, the machine is certainly capable of more. Hokie Hurler shot less again, so 850 was it's final top distance of 2010, they are not sure why it shot so much less this year.
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| Nov 07, 2010
Posted by Matt
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Tags:
launches, WCPC
Another day gone at the 2010 World Championships of Punkin Chunkin. Some interesting results. The Day 1 leaders, Pumpkin Hammer, added counterweight and didn't change their sling, resulting in a late release netting them a much shorter shot than Friday's 1979. They have added more weight for Sunday, allegedly 2000 pounds total, and tweaked pin/sling. Time will tell if that gets them over the hump. American Chucker chucked their throwing arm 100 feet downrange and the pumpkin maybe 1300 or so, so they retain their day 1 shot as well which was just under 1800 feet. First in Fright added 300 pounds to his counterweight, tweaked his tuning, and blasted a TREMENDOUS 1920 shot, moving it into a close second place. Rumor has it that they are adding more weight tomorrow.
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| Nov 06, 2010
Posted by Matt
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Tags:
launches, WCPC
A windy by rain-free day helped to slightly dry out a very messy cornfield today in Delaware as the 25th annual World Championships of Punkin' Chunkin' kicked off. Another long day of waiting in the wind for the air cannons to finish saw the firing end at 6PM, shortly before all light was gone in the sky.
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| Nov 05, 2010
Posted by Matt
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Tags:
launches, WCPC
Testing day for Team Urban Siege is in the books. It took until early afternoon before the Safety Committee started inspecting machines, but we got off 3 solid shots before deciding we were ready. Medieval Postal Service is firing great just as it was the last time it fired, at last year's chunk. We reverted to the pre-chunk tuning from last year which was firing at roughly 25 mph faster than we got at during competition last year, and the distances looked great. The pumpkins were falling beyond a drainage area well down field, but we are not sure exactly how far out that is this year, it was around 1200 feet last year though.
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| Nov 03, 2010
Posted by Matt
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Tags:
launches, WCPC
Quick update for everyone wondering if we are still alive. Yes we are. We traveled down to Delaware yesterday (Monday) and set up Medieval Postal Service today for the 25th Annual World Championship of Punkin Chunkin, which is this weekend. As in previous years, we will try to post daily updates about how the day went, where teams stand, etc. Tomorrow (Wednesday) is our testing day since we have not fired the machine since last year's chunk. Stay tuned for more!
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| Nov 02, 2010