Introduction

Hello!  My name is Daniel Bertrand, and I am an undergraduate studying History at Utah State University.  In this blog I will document my trebuchet project this season in Fall of 2018.  I have built four trebuchets over the last four years, and last year I decided to go medieval.  I am in the middle of a research project to rebuild my medieval trebuchet from last year.  Many of the pieces need to be replaced and some design aspects need to be improved, so it's basically a total rebuild.  This blog will discuss how I am building the machine down to the technicalities of my construction choices.  It will probably reveal how much of a newbie I am at this kind of thing.  I hadn't really used a power drill until the first time four years ago.  This blog will also talk about the logistics of my project and how I am sourcing all my materials and getting things done.  Half of the work on this is doing paperwork and arranging things with various aspects of the University.  This blog will also touch on why my trebuchet is medieval, and I will attempt to show the sources I am using to base my construction on as well as how I am interpreting them.  I should have started this blog a long time ago, so many of these posts will be dealing with things I did or decided all the way back to last year.  I will be adding posts day-by-day for the next month or so because my rebuild has been in full gear already for about two weeks as of this post.  My goal is to chuck stuff in medieval style.  The official goal of the project, however, is to educate the public on medieval construction of trebuchets, or what I have learned about that from my research and hands-on construction over the last few years.

This was the machine as of last year (picture).  I have some YouTube videos about my trebuchet endeavors that apply, especially "Trebuchet 2017" Parts One and Two:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXIB2SLLkMPzr6BjajJe_DA?

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