Team Urban Siege

WCPC 2010 - Day 3

Posted by Matt | 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.

WCPC 2010 - Day 2

Posted by Matt | 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.

WCPC 2010 - Day 1

Posted by Matt | 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.

Testing Day

Posted by Matt | 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.

Punkin Chunkin Time Has Come Again!

Posted by Matt | 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!

Imagine RIT a Huge Success

Posted by Matt | Tags: launches

Imagine RIT was a giant success for Team Urban Siege! We brought both the Melon Felon and Janus to demonstrate to the thousands of people coming to this event to see what students are up to at RIT. In fact, the official total was 32,000 people for this one-day event, and we saw many hundreds, probably well over a thousand, at our location alone, which was well away from the other exhibits (for reasons that should be obvious). All three members of Team Urban Siege are attending RIT currently, and while in past years we discussed doing it without really pursuing it, this year we went for it, especially since two of us graduate in two weeks.

Janus Fires, Outshoots 850-Foot Range

Posted by Matt | Tags: launches

It's a week old now, but here's what has happened recently. Last Saturday (3-27) we took Janus out to a new field. Since analysis with Working Model and our videos from the previous week, we knew that using only 50 pounds of counterweight was a recipe for disaster with a 20-pound arm, the arm is just way too heavy and will over swing and hit the hanger at anything less than 100 pounds. So we upped to 100 pounds. We also made a pair of 1 pound projectiles, they were tennis balls slit open some with a few small (3/8 ounce) chunks of lead and lots of steel BB's thrown in. With the outside wrapped up with a few layers of duct tape, they weighed in at 1 pound, 3/8 ounce each, and were full (no room for more BB's!).

Janus Fires for the First Time!

Posted by Matt | Tags: launches

So Janus has been completed. Well, mostly, the details of triggering the FAKA mode have yet to be fully ironed out, but the FEW mode is ready to go. In fact, Chris and Matt went to our old launch field on Saturday (3-20-10) to test the new machine. The purpose wasn't so much to launch great distances, but to verify that our winching and triggering systems would work. We had to reconfigure the winching system, and there are still some bugs to work out there, but after a quick reconfiguration of the triggering system, we were able to attempt 2 shots. On a side note, the complete set-up only took just over 1 hour, as was planned for when we have the full 3-person team present! This is good news.

Medieval Postal Service Joins the 1000 Foot Club

Posted by Matt | Tags: launches, WCPC

Sunday is traditionally break it Sunday at the World Championships of Punkin Chunkin. Everyone adds more counterweight, torques up their ropes more, etc. And today did not dissapoint. After the 2000 foot shot on Saturday, Yankee Siege shot a high 1800's shot, 1870 or so. We will post final distances later. Pumpkin Hammer, still stuck as a HCW this year, did not improve their distance. Hokie Hurler added even more weight to their machine, causing it to lean noticably, but they did not get any more distance. The machine did survive the shot, however.

Yankee Siege Breaks 2000 Feet on Way to New World Record

Posted by Matt | Tags: launches, WCPC

That's right folks, you heard it here first! Yankee Siege shook off their troubles from yesterday, whatever they were and FINALLY broke 2000 feet with a 2034 foot shot! Needless to say, they are in first place after two days with that shot. More interesting is where the rest of the field placed. Pumpkin Hammer shot a shorter distance than yesterday, but Hokie Hurler broke 1300 feet! Congratulations to them. Great Gourd Experiment looked to improve their distance, but we did not get the actual number. First in Fright finally got off a decent trajectory shot and broke 1100 feet!