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I had a browse on the Internet and found lots of great information on people who have built nice trebuchets, but none of these were pioneered. That is to say, the trebs I found were all too elaborate to be built from scratch by a bunch of Boy Scouts in a single day. What I needed was a trebuchet made from spars and rope. So, using the grand plans on the net as a starting point, I made my own model trebuchet with hedge clipping, rubber bands, string and a few other bits and pieces.
The blurred sequence of pictures below, taken with my camcorder, gives some idea of what the my model looks like in action. I especially like the last picture, where you can see the peanut M&M streaking away to land 35 feet down range.
Model Trebuchet