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My aim was to turn an engine of destruction into a means for celebration, by launching water balloons during the day and illuminated balls at night. As the date for Burning Man loomed, it became apparent that my job was simply going to keep me too busy to actually build the trebuchet.
Plan B: Take the components of a trebuchet to Burning Man, and build it there, hopefully with help from the BM Community. This was in part a cop-out (I ran out of time), but also seemed to me very much in the collaborative spirit of Burning Man. And I had all the ingredients: I live on 5 1/2 acres of woodland in the Sierras, and also had a bunch of spare parts from a telephone pole and a chain link fence that were recently dismantled on the property.
I now have a renewed respect for the genius of medieval engineers. They built trebuchets by the dozens, usually on the spot of a siege out of whatever was readily available, as these machines were simply too cumbersome to transport. Without good power tools, I felt helpless; I don't know how these guys built these things historically by hand.
Each day at Burning Man followed a pattern:
- Get up in the cool hours just after dawn and continue construction work with renewed hope;
- Reach a seemingly insurmountable obstacle that made me feel the whole project would have to be abandoned;
- Through the kindness of friends, neighbors, or strangers, find some way to overcome the day's obstacle;
- Continue on until the heat became prohibitive, and then knock off for the day.
Did I build a working trebuchet? Yes. Did it work very well? No. Our best shot at least went forward, but had no arc to it, and plowed into the ground about twenty feet in front of the trebuchet. The problem was an inability to callibrate and set the proper sling release point. Reviewing the literature on others who have attempted to build home-made trebuchets this seems to be the biggest technical hurdle.
In retrospect I remain undaunted, and pleased with the outcome. Life is about the journey, not the end result. This is especially true of Burning Man and each project within it. I made new friends. I fostered collaboration between people who'd never met. I had good times and good talks with people I'd never have encountered otherwise. And to me, that made Burning Man 2003 a success.
My special thanks to:
- Simon Hayes, a good friend who brought more tools than anyone could ever have needed;
- Robin Hayes, his brother who had all the instincts for engineering that I lacked;
- John Brown, a man with a generator and a good neighbor in every sense of the word;
- Jem, for her kindness and words of comfort when times got tough.
And of course, here are some obligatory pictures of the spectacle that is Burning Man:
1/08/04