It just seems like such an obvious tool, rather than a weapon.
Honestly, what the hell. Where do you think gunpowder comes from, thin air? Oh, is gravity a subscription service in your country?
Come on, try to at least be sensible about your response.
And yes, people who do avalanche control typically fire explosives out of a cannon or drop them from a helicopter. Getting a machine supply all the energy is the whole idea instead of climbing mountains yourself.
The point is to avoid that entirely and harvest gravity.
Re-wilding teams already climb far and wide, and this would extend their reach without increasing their dependencies.
Ammo is a dependency.
And if you INSIST on making everything completely low-tech and renewable, build a potato gun and use high-proof alcohol as fuel. It'll weigh less and last longer than whatever rube-Goldberg trebuchet design you have.
It's not obvious whether a trebuchet is better than compressed air, like a BB gun.
All harvesting requires some secondary-energy source.
Gravity is a resource, it takes effort to convert it to a form that can be applied - just like wheat, photons, air guns, etc.
> It's not obvious whether a trebuchet is better than compressed air, like a BB gun.
True, it’s not obvious yet, but it sure is fun following along and imagining the final, highly optimal version making its way through the process. I’d use it for some seed bombing hijinks, anyway. Green up the place, I would.
Problem is the muzzle velocity is pretty paltry right now. I think we are stuck behind the energy density of the power source
Is gravity a subscription service in your world?
One launch location or multiple?
What frequency of launch?
How heavy are the payloads?
How good accuracy?
What transport methods are available?
How long should it operate without maintenance?
Is solar an option if we go electric?
Etc.
I guess a couple hundred launches a day would be useful for seed-bombing/re-wilding, especially on rugged terrain.
Seed-bomb weight: I’d say anywhere from 1-10 grams, maybe?
Accuracy - it’s a seed bomb, you want dispersal to happen, so maybe the more interesting question is, how would you design a seed bomb to survive the trebuchet speeds and g-forces while also allowing for directed dispersal in the intended area. Seed-bomb design for impact conditions is also something of interest - some seeds need to be embedded in a layer of soil, some don’t. There are many parameters to optimize in the seed-bomb side of things, too.
Transport method: backpack-friendly, I think. I’d hike to an area, set up the trebuchet, and spend the day dispersing in a wide circle around the base. If the terrain is rugged, portability is especially important.
Operational time - one thing I think is important is that the trebuchet be resilient for long term use. If Toms’ engineering efforts prove fruitful, I’m sure the material construction will get some optimization such that, perhaps, the only thing that would need to be maintained would be the line - however, this is a known science, see for example the sailing industry, rappel lines, etc.
Solar/electric? I think a wind attachment for rewinding might be a bit more productive.
The scenario: a team of 5 is off for a month in rugged terrain, with the intent of dispersing targeted seed packages over a wide region. The seed bombs are designed to protect the seeds, the trebuchet is designed to deposit them sufficiently well that they remain viable in their final destination. We hike out there for a couple weeks, do a mass trebuchet dispersal, we come back a year later and observe the results.
Your biggest problem here isn't the launcher, it's the projectile. It's going to be damn near impossible to get a 1 gram projectile more than a couple hundred yards unless it's a dense metal. Doesn't matter how fast it's going, drag always wins here.
10 grams is more plausible, but then you're looking at ~1000ft-lbs cranking energy to get 10g supersonic (@ 40% efficiency) It's doable and you'll only be burning an extra ~100 calories per day for 200 shots. You might get bored though. An airgun will have far worse efficiency most of the time, though it can launch dart-shape things which can go much further for the material density.
You mentioned a bow, which is probably the tradeoff point of everything discussed so far. Flight bows are designed for distance shooting, are lightweight and can go 500 yards easily. The downside is you'll need to make the arrows yourself, cause there ain't no supply chain to sell hundreds at a time cheaply.
For the "jUsT uSe a hElIcOpTer lol" comment;
No, that's not practical, but you CAN get an RC plane that will carry a couple pounds for a tiny fraction of the cost. In terms of how much area it can cover vs supplies needed, that plane is going to be the least thirsty thing on the mountain, assuming you even need to climb it then.
Seriously, rich people, get out of your own bubble heads now and then.
A low-tech, low-resource-intensive, no-dependency application of this technology has huge applications around the world.
Do you know how much it costs to operate a helicopter per hour? Now scale it to month-long efforts to turn desert into forests. Scale it to a thousand villagers. Scale it to ten thousand villages.
>Why the need to have people hike out just to launch the seed bombs.
Because re-wilding requires a hands-on approach to be very effective. Just look at what China has done with the Great Green Wall - this was a labor intensive mega-project. Low-tech, highly effective solutions for seed distribution could be of great benefit in that context - without a bit of fancy speculation on our part, we'd still just have deserts and nothing to eat.
YES, you could 'just use a helicopter'. You could just sit back on your deck chair and be served mocktails, too.
Sometimes, kids, you need to do a bit of hard work.
Do you know how easy and cheap it is to make gunpowder?
I was making black powder rockets from grocery store ingredients when I was 12.
Also pretty sure several parts of the mechanism would need to be considered consumable if operating over a long period.
>Also pretty sure several parts of the mechanism would need to be considered consumable if operating over a long period.
Well, that remains to be seen after the optimization steps complete. Fine with me if it takes a year before I have to replace a string.
Meanwhile, I'm guessing you are suggesting the "ma' gunpowder" deliveries happen via drone, or helicopter, or methane-powered rocket ship or some such nonsense, lol ..
Seeds do.
Bread is consumed - it does not self-multiply.