Traditional A small projectile firing device

[aidenpons]

A while ago, I wanted to make my own projectile launchers. Cannons are all good and well, but Lego doesn't make enough of them. And I don't have many other good ones. Lego's catapults in particular have gone absolutely downhill (the one in Warg Attack will barely fire more then five centimeters if at all). I understand this is for health and safety and you don't want kids wandering around with giant weapons of destruction. (That's not actually my most powerful siege engine, but it is the one I'm most happy with due to a) its looks and b) its mechanism. My most powerful one can fire about 20m, but it's all hand-driven - pull the lever back HARD.)

 

The Vikings sets showed me that it is possible to create projectile launchers from bricks and Technic parts alone - this was the basis of my most powerful catapult (used a similar but better design). I then wondered how small I could create something that was capable of firing at least a meter. I wanted it to be easily created from bricks that were common to me and thus be mass-produceable.

 

After faffing around for a while, I decided the best form would be a ballista - catapults have too many moving parts for them to be sized down if you want them to fire well (the Viking catapult I linked above doesn't fire by pushing down on the shields - rather, you pull that red bit at the back (far right of the image) backwards. Fires far further than merely pushing down).

 

 

 

That's it mounted on a frame. The ballista in question contains 15 parts + 1 elastic band + 3 parts per bolt. That was the sort of piece count I was aiming for, never thinking I'd be able to get it that low It is extremely easy to mount - on the back you can attach some bars and to those various common parts which will allow it to stick on bricks.

 

I managed to make a couple in different colours and frames, as you can see:

 

 

 

Building it is extremely simple and requires basically two steps:

 

 

 

Loading it can hardly be called difficult either - push the bolt in from the front, grab it at the back, pull back, and release!

 

 

 

 

 

Going back to the Viking theme, it looks very nice on that small longboat (and ironically fires father than the ballista on the big longboat, as well as working for longer (the spring eventually loses its power).

 

 

Elastic bands are easily obtainable in copious quantites from your local saddlery, meaning I don't need to worry about losing elastic bands.

 

All in all, I'm very happy with how this design turned out - if you want to use it, go ahead!

 

[ot]THE WYSIWYG EDITOR FOR LARGE IMAGES IS A - MUFFLED CURSES - PAIN[/ot]

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