Catapults
John McCormick
Catapults are long range offensive weapons. They work of off stored energy and the release of that energy at a certain point to make the projectile the most effective against its target. Civilizations throughout history have used these weapons as siege engines. People like the Greeks, Romans were the first to employ the technology, just about everyone used catapults during the middle ages.
Catapults were used as siege engines, weapons that would fire a large projectile at long range capable of destroying towers, walls ETC. Basically they were used to render a castle's defenses useless to allow friendly troops to lay siege to the castle with relative ease.
There were multiple different types of catapults Ballista, Springald, Mangonel and Trebuchet. The Ballista is a giant crossbow that fires a large arrow using tension (stored energy). The ammunition was usually wooden body with an iron tip. Ballistas lacked firepower compared to other catapults but they were very accurate which made they good for hitting smaller targets. The Springald is basically the same thing as the Ballista except the fact that it was made to be placed in towers which made it smaller and less effective against hard targets. The springald was almost always used as an anti personnel weapon. The Mangonel was basically your standard issue catapult with a maximum effective range of 1300 feet. Its ammunition was very heavy and was capable of destroying castle walls and towers and to add upon that they were mobile. The Trebuchet was the most powerful catapult ever built. It was built to destroy the strongest walls or towers. The ammunition used in it were very large rocks which could be fired from long range to destroy mostly anything a castle has to defend itself.
Catapults in modern technology can be found on Nimitz class super carriers. These carriers have 4 Ballista type catapults capable of launching a 40,000 lb plane from 0 to 165 mph in 2 seconds every 25 seconds. These ballistas have a steel cable the pulls back using steam power then releases all that energy instantly.
My design for a catapult is a magnetic “cannon”. Using negatively charged magnets facing out diagonally would force a negatively charged magnet through the line incredibly fast. The idea would not necessarily work with a baseball, but it is in my opinion a very unique design.