Ole Miss Hosts Trebuchet Competition

A trebuchet is a catapult that works by using the mechanical advantage principle of leverage to propel a projectile much farther and more accurately than other catapults. Trebuchet is a siege engine that was employed in the Middle Ages to smash masonry walls or to lob projectiles over them and into the castle under siege. The counterweight trebuchet first appeared in China as early as the 5^th century BC.

The Ole Miss School of Engineering and the Mississippi Engineering Society recently held the fourth annual gravity-driven trebuchet competition. The event challenges all Mississippi high school and middle school students to design and build their own trebuchet catapults. Judges scored each trebuchet testing accuracy, distance, height and design.