Yankee Siege

Mid May 2008

2008-05-10T21:39:00.003-04:00

Yankee Siege Goes Commercial!

Yankee Siege is now for hire. We are available for rent for a day or we can travel to your site.

We have recently been contacted by Medieval Fantasies Company to shoot a commercial for a company that sells electronic monitors for power companies.

The shoot was in early April. Weather was cold and rainy the first day with lots of mud. The following day was bright and sunny but windy. Crushed gravel and stone had to be hauled in to control the mud. We threw 44 pound monitors which smashed into the field about 500 feet down range. We also crushed monitors with our ten thousand pound steel mace ball dropped about 20 feet high from a crane. And, did I mention, we also hit our crane (twice) with a 35 pound rock which spit out backwards from the treb and another 35 pound rock that went straight up and came down directly on the roof of the 1950 NorthWest model six crane, almost creating a new skylight! Oh well, I guess we need more practice in throwing objects other than pumpkins.

We ended up, removing 5000 pounds from the counter weight, and finally had the machine tuned to throw 40 pound objects. The second day went very well, with approximately 20 shots, with no mishaps, and very predictable throws.

The good thing about the shoot, is that it forced us to set up the machine early in the season, instead of waiting until September. The only thing bad about setting up early is the ice and mud. Ice had to be melted off the steel with a blow torch to get parts to mate. We can usually assemble the machine in four hours with a crew of six. It took us three times as long because we had to fight the weather.

We also had trouble getting the old NorthWest crane going (it hadn't been started in over a year). Something internal had froze (ice or rust) and the fuel pump wasn't working. Thanks to Chuck and Ken (two master mechanics) they finally were able to fire up the 1950 six cylinder Murphy diesel engine and get the job done.

The Museum of Science will be visiting our test site on June 30. The museum has a traveling group of teachers that visits sites of interest. They are planing a treb exhibit at the museum. They would like to learn more about trebs and to see a life-sized treb in action. I guess I will have to "bone up" on my physics!

Finally technical drawings of the new steel/carbon fiber throwing arm are completed. Nim-Cor of Nashua has fabbed the nine foot carbon fiber extension. End fittings (aluminum) will have to be fabbed and glued on with epoxy.

Copies of the final drawings of the new arm will be posted next month. These are fairly crude drawings (I'm not an engineer). I hope everyone can decipher them. I will scan them in so that everyone may see exactly what Yankee Siege is doing. And yes, these are the real drawings! We don't believe in playing poker. Yankee Siege believes in total transparency. We believe in sharing knowledge, information and insights. And yes, it's o.k. to criticize the design.

Next month I will be posting a more technical paper on the design process and the rationale for the new throwing arm.

P.S. Hope to see all the Pumkin Chunkin teams in Leesburg, Virginia, on June 7 for the grand premiere of Costa Mantis', "Flying Pumpkins the Movie".

Steve Seigars, YS

Mid April 2008

2008-04-12T21:51:00.005-04:00

The more and more I read about the physics of a trebuchet, the more I realize how little I actually know about the incredibly complex dynamics and the forces involved in accelerating an eight to ten pound object. If the motion of the machine were not so damn quick, I think we would all have a better intuitive understanding and a deeper fundamental understanding.

I have spent the last two months with two treb simulators (WinTreb and A-Treb). These simulators are a great aide in developing a good understanding of the "split second" motion of these machines. The ability to slow down time is invaluable to see what is actually occurring. What one thinks ones "sees" in real time, is often quite different from reality.

These simulators appear to be quite accurate. We have inputted the Yankee Siege parameters into these simulators and they have predicted very close to our actual distances thrown (within + or - 2%). As everyone knows, these machines must obey the laws of physics. (Although sometimes they appear to defy these laws).

Variations in the distances from throw to throw appear to be related to the time of release. (Excluding, of course, wind). There is a very small window of time in which to release for maximum distance. Plus or minus one tenth of a second can make a huge difference. (Small machines are even more critical - in a small machine everything happens quicker, making timing more difficult).

I've had to use these two simulators to explore as many ways as I can, to redesign Yankee Siege. One of the limitations of A-Treb is that it does not allow very high counterweight to missile ratios. Yankee Siege is now running a ratio of 1400 to one, (14,000 pound counterweight to 10 pound pumpkin). WinTreb will allow higher counterweight to missile ratios.

I do like A-Treb's graphs of forces on the machine. One very interesting note is that Yankee Siege has a reaction force on the axle of 100,000 pounds! (The force on the axle experienced when the counterweight reaches bottom).

A-Treb's graphs of acceleration and velocity of the throwing arm, really help one understand what happens as the counterweight "bottoms out" at the lower part of it's travel, causing the throwing arm to greatly accelerate. It also helps one visualize a transfer of energy from counterweight to throwing arm to sling. Each part of the machine will momentarily "stall" and as a consequence of the principle of conservation of energy, that energy present in the one moving part will have to be transmitted to another part of the machine (conservation of energy says that throughout the cycle the total energy of the machine will remain constant). Energy is conserved - you can't get rid of it! If one part of the machine "stalls" (no kinetic energy), then another part of the machine must possess the rest of the energy (either in kinetic or potential energy). Yankee Siege, for example, has 247,000 joules of energy stored in its counterweight. (14,000 pounds raised 12 feet). Throughout the cycle, that entire 247,000 joules must be accounted for. A-Treb has some nice graphs that show the relative partitioning of energy between the counterweight throwing arm and missile throughout the cycle.

In addition, angular momentum is conserved. As the sling and projectile swing around (due to centripetal acceleration) and finally overcomes the throwing arm, there is a dramatic increase in the moment of inertia of the beam/projectile combination. The projectile, as a consequence of its change in radius relative to the axle, "steals" some of the angular momentum and energy from the throwing arm, causing a slowing of the angular velocity of the throwing arm with a dramatic increase in the tangential velocity of the projectile. (Analogous to the skater who slows her spin by extending her arms).

As they say, you don't have know how a car works to drive it. But, if you want to know how to design a better car then you had better know every detail of how it functions. Yankee Siege is a "dumb design". We win only by brute force. It's time to re-design in a "smart way". We have to find a new way to more efficiently transmit a greater portion of the 247,000 joules of energy available to the projectile.

The single biggest "consumer" of energy is the throwing arm. Our throwing arm is a tapered steel built up I-beam weighing 2600 pounds! It takes a lot of energy to rotate such a large mass. Yankee Siege was designed to throw larger (300 pound) projectiles. Yankee Siege is very inefficient at throwing small (10 pound) projectiles. If we can design a less massive throwing arm, that won't break, we could throw significantly farther. Simulations with WinTreb show that with significant reduction of the throwing arm mass we could be throwing over "4000 feet"! Only one problem, we only have 2500 feet at our test site! 4000 feet seems almost too good to be true. Could the simulator be wrong? Where would we practice? Could a pumpkin take the g-force? The goal of the trebuchet division should be to beat the air cannons. Could such a machine be built? Should I wake up and smell the coffee?

Perhaps we should be a little bit more conservative and not go for the "ultimate machine" and aim for a more realistic 2500 foot machine. This would not require re-designing the whole machine but perhaps re-designing only a portion of the throwing arm. We have cut our existing long end of the throwing arm off about three feet from the axle and will be bolting on a new long end.

The new long end of the arm will be fabbed from ASTM A-572 steel, 3/16 inch thick plate, starting with a cross section of 12 inches by 12 inches and tapering to 3 inches by 3 inches over 23 feet. This will give a total weight of approximately 500 pounds. (Compared to over one thousand pounds for the old arm). 500 pounds is a huge savings in weight!

A note about A-572, grade 50, steel: this is a nobidium/vanadium low alloy structural steel with a minimum yield strength of 50,000 psi. Compare this to A-36 (mild steel) with a minimum yield strength of 36,000 psi. It (A-572) is easily cut and welded with no reduction in strength. (This is not a heat treated steel and will not degrade in strength in the heat affected zone of the weld).

The last nine feet of the tip of the arm will be a carbon fiber cantilever (clad with Kevlar for impact resistance). The carbon fiber tip be a "bolt on item", with the option of going to an aluminum 9 foot extension if the carbon fiber should fail. The carbon fiber will weigh less than 10 pounds! (A savings of over 35 pounds over the old extension).

We have decided on this "hybrid" arm for several reasons.

First, a total carbon fiber arm would be prohibitively expensive and perhaps not as forgiving as steel with regards to impact resistance. (When carbon fiber fails, it fails catastrophically without warning).

Second, steel, although heavy, is very stiff and easily fabricated and repaired in the field. An A-572 tapered steel arm, would make a relatively light strong arm. I have worked the numbers for a cabled stayed steel arm and came out with very little weight savings over a cantilever, with a lot more complexity. We have decided to keep it simple, with a pure cantilever. (I like the "looks" better, also).

Third, the part of the arm closest to the tip is the most important area of the arm to keep light. (Moment of inertia increases with the radius squared). It takes a lot of energy to rotate a mass that is a great distant from the axle. It is absolutely critical that the last nine feet of the throw arm be extremely light and stiff. What better way to solve this problem than to use a material that has the highest strength to weight ratio of all common structural materials (carbon fiber). We have decided to put the most effort where it counts the most.

Fourth, we have decided not to go with wood because of maintenance problems and reliability.

Fifth, aluminum: Yankee Siege is seriously considering going to an aluminum arm. Aluminum has a more favorable strength to weight ratio. A 23 foot extension to Yankee Siege's base arm could be fabbed out of 1/4 inch 7075-T6 aluminum plate with a yield strength of 75,000 psi! The main drawback of aluminum is that it can't be welded without a significant reduction in strength (40 percent reduction). Fabrication would require bolted connections (austenitic stainless steel bolts). Now I finally understand why airplane wings are riveted, not welded! The heat of welding destroys the tempering of the aluminum. There would be significant reduction in the weight of the 23 foot arm. (From 1000 pounds to 330 pounds, a 670 pound savings)! Aluminum is a material to seriously consider.

Nim-Cor Company in Nashua, NH. Phone 1(888)464-6267 will be fabbing the 9 foot carbon fiber extension. They have a carbon fiber automated filament winding mandrel system with the epoxy cured in an autoclave under pressure. Nice people to talk to, very helpful. They can only fab a uniform (prismatic) beam (no hand lay-up or tapering). They suggested wrapping the arm in Kevlar to give the arm some impact resistance. (An errant steel slip ring on the end of the sling could destroy the arm).

We will start gathering materials and start fabbing as soon as good weather comes.

Last but not least, perhaps the hardest part of the whole project is telling your wife how expensive the new carbon fiber extension will be!

I would appreciate your feedback! If you think this line of reasoning to totally foolish I would like to know. Do you have any suggestions? I would like to have an open discuss. We are all facing similar problems with strength and weight.

The Yankee Siege team is very excited over the new arm. Will it work? Failure would be o.k. Just not in competition! Looking forward to your feedback.

P.S. Next posting mid-May

Steve Seigars, YS

Mid January 2008

2008-01-20T18:23:00.000-05:00

I found a great article on the physics of a trebuchet. It is entitled "Siege Engine Dynamics" written by Mark Denny and published in the 2005, European Journal of Physics pages 561-577. It can be downloaded for a fee or if you have access to a major university library it can be downloaded for free. This paper is a bit hard to digest, unless you have a strong math background, it may not be worth reading. Some of the symbols are not very clearly defined, but by reading it several times most readers would be able to decipher the meaning. (I had to read it about five times before understanding it fully).

I have spent the past two months trying to design a new throwing arm for Yankee Siege. The team has narrowed down choices of shapes and materials to three or four different materials/configurations. (More about this later).

Before going ahead with a new lighter throwing arm, I first of all, had to determine if there would be any benefit to a lighter throwing arm. How far is Yankee Siege away from the "speed limit of a trebuchet"? I call this the SPLAT law. What is the SPLAT law? There is an upper limit of speed that no trebuchet can exceed (catapults do not have this limit!). This limit, is the speed due to the acceleration of gravity. The center of gravity of the counter weight can NEVER fall faster than the speed due to the acceleration of gravity (32 feet per second per second). This is the speed of a free falling body. The counter weight will, of course, always fall a little bit slower than a free falling body because it has to overcome the inertia of the throwing arm.

IF Yankee Siege has added so much weight to the counter weight that the counter weight speed is very close the speed of a free falling body, then making a lighter arm will only have a very slight marginal effect on the throwing arm angular velocity (speed of rotation) and therefore, will not throw significantly further. I am still searching for that mass less throwing arm which would offer no resistance to rotation and would allow the counter weight to free fall and therefore attain the maximum angular velocity.

The other major factor that limits the angular velocity (speed of rotation of the throwing arm) is the length of the short end of the throwing arm. The greater the length of the short end (counter weight end) of the throwing arm, the slower the maximum limit of the angular velocity (rotation) of the throwing arm. (It takes longer for the counter weight to drop because it has a longer distant to fall). Another way to look at this is if you increase the length of the short end to infinity, then the counter weight would have an infinite height and would never complete its fall and therefore the throwing arm would rotate infinitely slow. This is the main reason why large scale trebs have relatively slow moving (rotating) throwing arms. Their angular velocity is limited by the SPLAT law and the SPLAT law is reached at a lower angular velocity. Conversely, a small scale treb with a very small, short end of the arm, can rotate very quickly because the counter weight doesn't have very far to drop and can complete the cycle very quickly.

Yankee Siege has a 12 foot drop of the counter weight. If we are close to the ultimate speed limit, the counter weight should take .86 seconds to fall. (The time it takes a free falling body to fall 12 feet). Yankee Siege takes a little over 1 second to fall 12 feet (timed with a stop watch off of Pumpkin Hammer's website showing Yankee Siege firing). Thank you Pumpkin Hammer-by the way you have a great website.

The other consideration is the fact that the counter weight does not drop straight down. And we would expect it take a little longer to drop if it doesn't go straight down but takes another (non-vertical) path. We may be even closer to the limit than we originally thought.

The conclusion from this discussion is that Yankee Siege is approaching the speed limit and that making a lighter arm will help but not dramatically increase the angular speed of the arm because we are so close to free fall.

More on the new throwing arm details next month. Hope to hear you feed back!

Steve Seigars, YS

Late December 2007

2007-12-25T20:17:00.000-05:00

Spent most of the time this weekend pouring over books on beam theory and strength of materials. I found two great books by J.E. Gordon written in the 1960 & 70's entitled "Strength of Materials and Structures" and "The New Science of Strong Materials". These books are essential reading for anybody interested in designing any structure. Mr. Gordon has quite a talent of clearly and concisely explaining the theories of bending and elasticity. These books are quite readable and anyone with a basic understanding of algebra and geometry can easily digest. These are great books for the layman and are a good introduction to further engineering studies. After reading these books, you are left with a more intuitive understanding of why materials behave as they do.

As I am wandering through these books, I am constantly thinking of how these principles apply to a trebuchet. There is a good explanation on the strength of a material and, its elasticity and its density and how that relates to its strength to weight ratio.

Mr. Gordon points out that the specific modulus of elasticity (that is its stiffness per weight) is virtually the same for all the common structural materials. (With the possible exception of carbon fiber composite). This explains why there are several choices of materials to construct a throwing arm with no clear cut winner in stiffness to weight. Whether one uses steel, aluminum, wood, fiberglass, titanium, etc... there is not a lot of differences.

I want to make one important distinction between strength and stiffness, they are not the same! When it comes to strength and weight there is quite a difference from material to material. Titanium is a clear winner of all the metals. Carbon fiber is a clear winner of all the non-metals in regards to strength to weight.

That comes to the next question. What is more important in designing a throwing arm? Is stiffness or strength more important? The obvious answer is that both are important. The throwing arm must be strong enough not to break and at the same time be stiff enough not to deflect too much on the pull down as to produce too much of a recoil upon release of the trigger.

Note: Yankee Siege has developed an annoying recoil of the arm upon release of the trigger. We have added so much weight to the counter weight that upon release, the throwing arm snaps back and creates a "hop" of the pumpkin off the ground and a subsequent oscillation of the arm that leads to a quite unpredictable release of the projectile. We are trying to time the release of the projectile to an arm that is oscillating in its own mode of frequency.

This brings home the point of the difference between strength and stiffness. Stiffness relates to elasticity. A throwing arm may be quite strong and at the same time quite flexible (elastic), leading to greater deflections when cocked. (Note: an increase in the cocking angle will cause less deflection, with no deflection if cocked to 90 degrees).

For example: two identical size throwing arms made out of different materials will exhibit different amounts of deflection even if they had the same tensile strength. Mild steel and some aluminum alloys have identical tensile strength but aluminium will deflect three times as much upon pull down (aluminium has one third the elasticity of steel).

If deflection is deemed an important criteria, then choice of an appropriate modulus of elasticity is of critical importance.

Yankee Siege is trying to figure out a way to take advantage of the elasticity of the beam and figure out the frequency of the elastic oscillation and to take advantage of the "forward snap of the arm".

Perhaps a very elastic beam would be a help not a hindrance! If we could only time it right and design an arm to oscillate at the right frequency so that the release would coincide with the forward "snap". Cellulose is very elastic-maybe Trebarbaric knows something we don't! I'm still looking for the ultimate material!

A simpler approach would be to design an arm that is very stiff (steel would be a good choice as it has the highest modulus of elasticity of all the common structural materials). A very stiff arm would deflect very little and would not be a nightmare to time the release because the deflections are insignificant (they would be very small but high frequency).

We are still in the design phase for the new throwing arm. We have not made any final decisions as to the materials or combination of materials or configuration. I have now finished re-reading Gordon's books for the third time and I am still learning something new each time.

As you can probably tell from these musings, the Yankee Siege team is somewhat obsessed with designing an energy efficient arm. I spend the majority of my waking hours thinking and reading and imagining. I keep thinking that maybe if read just one more book, one more page, one more article that the ultimate design will suddenly become obvious.

In reality, there are probably a dozen ways to construct an efficient arm. We may end up with two or three different arms that can be bolted on and see which one works best.

I think the hardest part of the whole design process is making a final decision! Committing to a final design means that you have said to yourself that this is the best design that I can come up with at this time, given my level of knowledge at this time. Perhaps I should wait a little more time, gain some more knowledge, and redesign. At what point do you say enough is enough. At what point do you pull the trigger and let gravity take over!

I'll try to keep everyone posted monthly. I enjoy hearing from you all. Yankee Siege team would like to hear your feedback. If you think we are proposing some utterly foolish idea, we would like to hear from you. I hope some of these discussions will help other teams, as well as Yankee Siege. I would especially like to hear from Pumpkin Hammer, Trebarbaric and Merlin. I think that we should keep in touch throughout the year. I call these teams, members of the "1000 Foot Club". We are the members of an exclusive club that have broken the 1000 foot mark (no easy accomplishment). I hope I haven't left anyone out. Anyone may join the club-you just have to throw more than a thousand feet in any competition. By the way, Yankee Siege fully recognizes Trebarbaric's throw of 1866 feet!

Yankee Siege hopes to start a new club in November, (the 2000 Foot Club)! Wishful thinking!!! Hope to have several new members!

Steve Seigars, YS

Mid-November 2007

2007-11-22T21:02:00.001-05:00

Punkin Chunkin for 2007 has come and gone! Merlin(King Arthur) and Pumkin Hammer have built new machines and promise to be quite competitive next year. They were relatively untested machines for this year but I can see that both machines, if tuned, could easily throw into the 2000 foot range. Yankee Siege has pulled off another first place for the fourth year in a row. The only other team to do this in the treb division has been the legend King Arthur.

Now is the time for reflection and to decide to what direction we want Yankee Siege to go. Yankee Siege has always been known as the brute force machine. We have enjoyed throwing 200 to 300 pound pumpkins as well as 10 pound pumpkins. We have now come to a cross road. We have come to the realization that a single machine can not be built that can efficiently throw a large as well as a small projectile. The massive throwing arm needed to throw a heavy projectile severely increases the moment of inertia, which requires a massive counterweight to accelerate the arm (we have a 14,000 pound counterweight). Our throwing arm weights 2600 pounds. Most of the potential energy of the counterweight is used up in accelerating the arm. A minuscule amount of energy actually gets into the pumpkin. (A paltry 5.9 percent of the potential energy of the counterweight). A machine that is only 5.9 % is a very poorly designed machine! We are, by far, the most energy inefficient machine in the whole competition. By contrast, King Arthur, is 57 percent efficient. King Arthur is a very well designed machine from an energy efficiency viewpoint.

Early in the spring of 2007, we cut the end of the throwing arm off about 3 feet from the axle and mounted a companion flange in anticipation of building a new lighter throwing arm. We now have the option of bolting on a newly designed arm or if that arm does not work out to default back to the original arm. This, bolt on modular design, would give us total freedom to test new arms and see what works. If the new arms failed, we could always go back to the old "tried and trued" arm. Our basic machine (winch, frame, axle, counterweight, etc...) have proven themselves over the years reliable and quite robust, so the decision was made to keep the basic machine "as is" and modify the throwing arm to be lighter. The new throwing arm will be specifically designed to throw 10 pound pumpkins and therefore giving up our ability to throw 300 pound pumpkins. To remain competitive, we are forced to make major changes in the throwing arm. The throwing arm is the "energy hog". It is robbing us of energy to accelerate the pumpkin.

The team has been racking our collective brains trying to come up with the "ultimate throwing arm".

What would it be made of?
What would be its shape?
How long?
What would it weigh?
Would it be able to be repaired in the field?
Would it be able to be modified?
Would it break?
What would it cost?
Would we be able to build it?

All these are questions to be answered and hopefully solved. I'm still looking for the massless arm! (I'm told that somewhere, perhaps in Area 51, or on another planet there have been sighted massless throwing arms designed by an advanced civilization)! Or maybe we could locate one in a junkyard, we all know you can find anything in a junkyard. We'll keep on looking!

We all know there is no material or combination of materials that will satisfy all design considerations. Light and strong are two incompatible parameters.

By contrast, Yankee Siege is so inefficient(5.9%), that a small increase in efficiency will bring large increases in distance thrown. If we could just get Yankee Siege to be 10% efficient we would be throwing 2881 feet(14000 lbs. dropping 12 feet and throwing a 10 lb. projectile).

Anyone who has been working with trebs for a long time knows that designing a treb to throw long distances is no easy task and is full of potential pitfalls. The best thought out plans can sometimes fail by overlooking the smallest detail. The weakest link will always show up sooner or later. There are often unexpected events happening at such high speeds that can't be seen by the naked eye. It's hard enough to design a structure that is static. It becomes exponentially harder to design something from a dynamic viewpoint.

We all learn from failure (we learn more from failure than success). When something breaks, we know for sure it wasn't strong enough. When something doesn't break, we don't have a clue as to how much we have "over-engineered". After all we trying to push our machines up to ,but not beyond the breaking point, just light enough for maximum acceleration, but not so light as to break. So break a few arms and find the limit!

We'll keep you posted on our progress.

Steve Seigars, Yankee Siege

Punkin Chunkin 2007 World Champions!

2007-11-06T15:25:00.000-05:00

The Punkin Chunkin competition is over for this year, and once again we are the World Trebuchet Champions with a winning throw of 1658 feet into a strong wind! The scoreboard with our winning throw is at left. (Photos enlarge when you click on them)

The convoy all packed up and departing area 64 for the long drive back to New Hampshire.

Day Three

2007-11-02T17:26:00.000-04:00

Thursday November 1, 2007 (team member Valerie B-day) Practice day

First two shots fell out of the pouch. And the controversial 1st successful practice shot was thought by the forward observers who didn't see the pumkin but heard it land at 2k plus! We switched to a more encompassing pouch and and tried some 1/8th wire cable and had moderate shots at the 15 to 1600 range. The last shot of the day was very high (highest ever from YS). Our good friends Pumkin Hammer and The Magic of Merlin arrived. Pumkin Hammer got off two shots and had one slip off the sling. Merlin arrived late and didn't get off a shot before dark.

Weather was warm and very little wind! Field is beginning to dry out although our two left wheels are slowly sinking into the soil. Bridgeville had several days of rain prior to our arrival. We will shore up the left side of the treb and wheels early Friday a.m.

Friday November 2, 2007 (Day one of competition)!
Very windy day, hurricane Noel off the coast. Strong north west winds!
Yankee Siege was the first of the trebs to throw! We decided to use a lower tragectory because of the strong head wind.
Good shot hooked strongly to the left at 1658 feet. Happy with the shot considering the windy conditions. Pumpin Hammer was next at 700 plus and Merlin 800 plus. Artemis threw 4th.

Costa Mantis has been filming about 20 teams for the past year and has hired a high speed camera crew that will give slow motion view of the machines at 1000 frames p/second. Can't wait to see the slow motion video of what's going on and can not be seen by the human eye of shot one!

A special thank you to Pumkin Hammer for their trebuchet running scoreboard. They have great team spirit and always think of the trebuchet division as a whole. I think the scoreboard is a great idea and it helps clear up some of the confusion during the pumkin chunkin competition. Also, thank Pumkin Hammer for always making reservations for Saturday night dinner at Big Fish.

Wishing everybody luck for day two!

YS

Yankee Siege Arrives in Bridgeville, Delaware

2007-10-30T07:00:00.001-04:00

Yankee siege arrives today for "Punkin Chunkin 2007", this year at a brand new venue in Bridgeville, Delaware. The new site boasts a field roughly twice the size as the one in Millsboro, where the event was held last year. Yankee Siege will defend it's Adult Trebuchet class title throw of over 1400 feet. We hope to best our 2005 World Record of 1702 feet set in 2005, and with undisclosed new improvements to the machine, perhaps 2000 feet will be attained.