FLINT, MI – How far can a medieval weapon launch a 12-pound watermelon? And could the sixth-grade students at Flint’s Holmes STEM Academy be accurate enough with the trebuchet to hit a reporter from The Flint Journal?
Trebuchets were invented by the Chinese more than 2,000 years ago and were used as weapons to break into castles and knock down stone walls, according to Michael Toth.
He brought the trebuchet to the Flint School District on Tuesday, June 10, as part of a lesson in physics for students in conjunction with Cranbrook Institute of Science’s explorer camp.
Toth told the students how a trebuchet was built to toss 200- to 300-pound boulders up to 300 yards.
“They would’ve done this all by hand,” he said. “It took a lot of time and a lot of work.”
Trebuchets fell out of use with the invention of gunpowder, Toth said.
The demonstration trebuchet came to the school on a 15-foot-long trailer, standing 20 feet tall and weighing 5,300 pounds.
Toth said the maximum range of the the weapon is 330 feet.
Estimated at 12 pounds, the watermelon flew about 150 feet before hitting the ground and smashing to pieces.
“You was out there and I thought it was going to hit you,” sixth-grader Stephon Steele told The Flint Journal. “If the watermelon did hit you, I’d have been laughing.”
There were 110 sixth-graders who took part in the camp Tuesday, which also included environmental activities.