Trebuchet

Deffinition: a medieval engine of war with a sling for hurling missiles (Webster Dictionary)

This type of trebuchet is mostly known as the traction trebuchet. This is because it used people pulling on it for it to work. There were usally two ropes, one on each side, where men pulled the arm down for it to work. Because of this, the distance that this weapn can send an object is shorter than most of the other large seige weapons. A sling was used as the inspiration for this weapon. The creators thought at the time that it would be able to send objects really far, but in actuality, it did not.

How it works:

This siege weapon has a large pendulum like weight at the bottom of the swinging arm. This makes potential energy when the arm is pulled down all the way down, and then when it is let go, it is then changed to kinetic energy because the weight goes down. This works just because men pull the arm down. This is why there is less potential energy. There is a max potential that way, and it isn't much. This weapon can only throw the object 100 to 200 feet. That is not that far at all. That is a max of two foot ball fields. If the weapon had more of tightener on the rope then the object could be thrown further. But because it didn't, the arm was made longer to throw the object further.