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    Whoosh Boom Splat: Build Jam Jar Jets, Elastic Zip Cannons, Clothespin Snap Shooters, and More Legendary Launchers
    Whoosh Boom Splat: Build Jam Jar Jets, Elastic Zip Cannons, Clothespin Snap Shooters, and More Legendary Launchers
    Whoosh Boom Splat: Build Jam Jar Jets, Elastic Zip Cannons, Clothespin Snap Shooters, and More Legendary Launchers
    Ebook201 pages1 hour

    Whoosh Boom Splat: Build Jam Jar Jets, Elastic Zip Cannons, Clothespin Snap Shooters, and More Legendary Launchers

    By William Gurstelle

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    About this ebook

    In this revised and expanded edition, William Gurstelle shows ordinary folks how to build a dozen fun and impressively powerful launchers with inexpensive household and hardware store materials. This new edition includes three new projects along with diagrams, photographs, and fascinating science information. With a strong emphasis on safety, the book also gives tips on troubleshooting and describes each machine's historical origins as well as the science behind it. Workshop warriors and tinkerers at any skill level will love these new exciting DIY projects.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChicago Review Press
    Release dateOct 1, 2017
    ISBN9781613739105
    Whoosh Boom Splat: Build Jam Jar Jets, Elastic Zip Cannons, Clothespin Snap Shooters, and More Legendary Launchers
    Author

    William Gurstelle

    William Gurstelle is an American nonfiction author, magazine writer, and inventor. He is a feature columnist for Make: magazine and the Pyrotechnics and Ballistics Editor at Popular Mechanics magazine.

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      Book preview

      Whoosh Boom Splat - William Gurstelle

      1

      EARLY ARTILLERY AND THE NIGHT LIGHTER 36

      Prior to 399 BC there was no such thing as artillery. Ancient warfare consisted of hand-to-hand combat—club against club or sword against sword. In addition, warriors used thrown weapons like spears and stones, which were usually hurled from slings. Finally, they shot arrows from stretched bows. In 399 BC military leaders in the Greek city of Syracuse came up with ideas for larger, semistationary weapons that could wield much more power than could a single warrior’s arm. These devices used animal parts, such as horns or neck tendons or hair, which had been fashioned into springs. By stretching these springs, a man (or even better, a group of men) could load the device with comparatively huge amounts of potential energy. These weapons were the earliest catapults and represented the first type of artillery.

      From 399 BC until about AD 1330 all military artillery was powered by human or animal muscle. During this 1,730-year stretch, artillery took the form of siege weapons called onagers, trebuchets, ballistas, mangonels, petraries, and spring engines—all of which we now refer to by the general term catapult. Catapults work by suddenly releasing energy that has been loaded into the device by work from the operators’ muscles. In ancient and medieval times catapult operators would tighten a rope spring, bend back an enormous bow made from wood and animal horn, or raise a great weight high off the ground. When a catapult is fired, a spring releases or a counterweight falls and, through a mechanism or lever, quickly and efficiently transfers its stored energy to the

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