Team Tormentum worked many late nights trying to finish Mista Ballista
for the 2002 Chunk. We eventually packed up the machine, and dragged it
to Delaware even though we had never fully assembled it, nor were all the
parts built, such as the bowstring. Regardless, we had a great time
and impressed lots of people with the nifty parts we've built over the past three years..
Here is our team after the chunk, worn and dirty. From left to right is
Roger Nichols, Kevin Johnson, Dave Shepard, Jeff Del Papa, and Eric Ludlam.
We are standing in front of the packed and machine waiting to travel home.
The first thing we had to do when we got to the chunk was pull parts off
the trailer. Here Jeff and Dave are attempting to assemble the rope bundles
into the regulae frame. Once they were bolted in, they became the engine
for Mista Ballista.
Fortunately, they had a handy fork lift which helped us put the massive rope
bundle assembly onto our machine. We even had the help of Wolfie, the owner
of Old Glory and current record holder with his chunk of over 4100 feet.
This particular step of assembly scared us as we had no idea if our pivot
point would cause the winch end of our scapus to fly up into the air.
The operators didn't know this, and just plunked it down.
Eventually the rest of the framework was finished, and it started looking
like a ballista. Dave was still building the bowstring at this point when
we started tensioning the arms. Here Roger is adding pads where the arms
will strike the stanchions on our rope bundle frames.
Here is another view the next day with our added stop-pads, and our metal
throwing pouch with a basketball net strung inside. Roger's truck is sitting
to the right and is powering the heavy duty winch we borrowed from his bumper which
performed the draw back, and even the modiolus tightening for us. On the
side of the machine you can see a white pumpkin, the result of our only
competition shot which had the bottom ripped off by the machine during the
throw. While it flew about 100 feet it wasn't counted because the pumpkin
was injured by the throw.
Eventually disaster struck, and our fancy metal arm was folded over
by the power of our rope bundle. Jeff and Roger had tightened the rope bundles
up another 6 degrees on all sides, and the arm folded during a pull-back test.
It is apparently time to rethink our arm construction strategy.
Here is our machine ready for travel. We tipped the rope bundles back
onto the frame, and tied it down there. The fork-lift drivers weren't too
happy with how much time we used to set up, so we used this strategy for
travelling home. It worked out quite well.
Additional Pages for Punkin Chunk 2002
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Punkin Chunk 2002
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Team Tormentum worked many late nights trying to finish Mista Ballista
for the 2002 Chunk. We eventually packed up the machine, and dragged it
to Delaware even though we had never fully assembled it, nor were all the
parts built, such as the bowstring. Regardless, we had a great time
and impressed lots of people with the nifty parts we've built over the past three years..
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Punkin Chunk 2002 : The Competition
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The 2002 chunk set several new world records this year. We spent a lot of time
with the catapult folks this year, and had a good time.
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