Wood Trebuchet kit for 12 and up, Fully Adjustable, launches 30+ ft. Made in America, Updated Design for 2025

Great trebuchet kit if you're not going to build one from scratch! This kit is ripped from 1/2" pine ply with some scroll cuts, thus saving you all of the woodworking entailed. I teach physics and wanted a durable model which would last more than a few seasons, instead of the cardboard ones which usually get built. It is important to have a demo model before students set to work their cardboard ones. This will be perfect for that purpose with longevity. All of the wood parts fit well and if care is used during assembly, a quality model will be the result. Use wood glue and if possible, a brad nailer in order to speed up assembly time and strength. Took me about an hour to build, some light sanding was also required....a fun build....highly recommend!

My 12 year old has been drawing and designing trebuchets for months and wanting my husband to build a scaled-model. I found this for my son for Christmas--he loved it. He built it himself in no-time (except for waiting for the glue to dry). He hasn't launched anything farther than 10+ ft so far, but I'm sure he'll perfect it in the coming days. This product was straight-forward to build, worth every penny, and WORKS!

I don't understand some of the other reviews on this toy. First, the instructions are on the box, so how could you get one with no instructions??? Second, this is a KIT, you have to build a kit, why all the people saying it is to hard to assemble??? OK now the bad. The glue is worthless. I guess they had to put something in the box, but I would recommend you use some real wood glue instead of what comes with it. Now I do a lot of woodworking, so I had everything to do this right (like Titebond glue) to do this right. The holes for the main axle are very overside. I'm guessing that this is in response to reviewers that claimed the "right" size hole was too small. Again the difference in weather you realize this is a Kit, not a finished toy. They give you spacers for the main axle to keep it centered. assuming you build the kit square, these are too short. Thats was not an issue for me because I chose to add wood to the main arm to reinforce it. The other "bad" was the grade of wood used. I would call this #2 pine. Not really an issue except on the main arm. On mine, there is a rather large knott on the long throwing arm. I chose to glue some reinforcements to the arm (which also took up the slack of the too short spacers) I have an air powered brad nailer which made assembly time about 20 min for me. I could have done it in 10 if I hadden decided to reinforce the main arm. Using it. I had a ball getting this working. For weight I used lead shot. This works great. I coated the top of the shot with glue which keeps it from spilling out. For ammo I use marbles. I found some marbles which were packaged to be slingshot ammo and they work great. I have helped two of the neighbor kids build these too. We have great fun seeing who can get the best distance in my driveway. One of the kids took pics of each step building and adjusting and he will turn that in for a science project.. I did not permanently fasten the axle on mine. I have made a second arm from clear popular and we are experimenting using different axial positions. My best so far has been from moving the axle 3/4 of an inch. Of course thats with my weight and my ammo.. One of the kids go some tape on wheel weight that he put on the outside of the counter weight and is the current record holder with a original arm. We are having a lot of fun with these things. Next spring the project will be to scale this up and make one from scratch that is 3x bigger!

The Good: ========= It is a pretty neat toy, and the kid and I had fun building it and firing it. There are a lot of lessons to teach in building it and learning how to launch the projectile. Perhaps the best testament to this is that it just does what I expected so the "good" part of the review is brief. The not-so-good section needs more elaboration as not all of the following points are necessarily bad (hence "not so good" instead) and they do not take away from the toy itself. The Not So Good: ===============+ - As others have mentioned, our kit was missing one of the pins. It was easy and quick enough to use a finish nail from my workbench instead. Also, Oakland Ballistics replied promptly to my email on this - great service! - The instructions are printed on the box and we did not receive a separate instructions sheet (to the comments others made about not getting instructions) - it would have been nice to have a single sheet of paper with the instructions since it appears the ones on the box were given too little space and so they were kind of crammed in and the order was a little less than clear. However, you can print these from their web site and frankly there aren't that many parts that you would have much problem assembling it from just a single picture. This wasn't a major issue. - There isn't enough wood glue in the small bottle that comes with the kit to finish the job. I had some in the garage so no worries, but this could be a hassle for those who would have to buy a separate bottle. - As others have mentioned, you need to build this over several separate sessions in order for the glue to dry for sub-assemblies: 1. Build side pieces plus part of the counterweight box, 2. Finish counterweight box, 3. Final assembly. This can be mildly frustrating when the kid keeps asking "can we shoot it now?" after each session. This isn't the end of the world and we used the time to discuss how things are built and that not everything goes together in 5 minutes. If you have a brad nailer or use screws as others have suggested, it could be done in one session (but the glue would still need to dry). I don't think this is a big deal (and probably not as much of an issue as others apparently thought) but it is helpful to understand this so you can set expectations with your child before you start building. Just understand that the building of it is part of the fun.

Daughter just did a catapult in school, so we thought building a trebuchet together would be fun. The building of it was fun, however one of the base pieces was so warped as to be unusable. At least 1/4" out of square. Had to make my own replacement piece in the woodshop. Overall, the quality of the wood and cuts is pretty low. Pieces are out of square, pre-drilled holes very rough inside as well as not lining up well because the holes weren't perpendicular (hard to make perpendicular holes when the block you're drilling isn't square). One of the answers on the product page says "The more weight that you put in the basket will increase the distance of the throw." So I filled it with fine grain lead shot. Broke the main axle on the first throw. I'll be taking some measurements off this model to build my own. This was $26.65 I regret spending.

Extremely happy with this kit. Went together very well! Great for teaching kids physics. Overall great kit would highly recommend.

Ordered for Christmas (2012); Amazon is awesome on shipping and returns. A return of a Christmas present?! ARG. Once unwrapped on the day, the instructions and a piece were missing. BIG DISAPPOINTMENT for the 9 yr old. His brother got the da Vinci's catapult (sold from Amazon & Marbles the Brain Store). Got the new Trebuchet on Jan. 3. Guess what: missing instructions AGAIN. I'm resourceful and downloaded instructions from the company website. Come on - randomly placed pictures without real instructions or order? Missing steps? I mean, it's my ink and printer. Give me a complete PDF. Don't make me hunt for it, scratch my head, assume I magically have additional wood glue on my own to finish, make me get a ruler even when not instructed to for the A-frame, guess how to attach the sling, tell me the image is scale when it actually isn't. Really? I had to download the 'rest' of the instructions disguised as 'launch instructions' to try to figure out how to attach the sling. Sorely lacking again. I had to do more searching and look at YouTube to figure it out. Come on. Could you try harder to be a good product experience? I mean, it wasn't even on sale AND it even cost more than the catapult sold by the very customer service oriented Marble the Brain Store. Please go buy yourself a da Vinci's catapult and get schooled on how to do it right on providing good instructions, enough glue, and on construction design. Now let's talk construction. I've got a good point of comparison. The da Vinci's catapult has dowels (in addition to the glue) at the joins of the A-frame and other places making it much better in design for lasting. This trebuchet - nope. Also, don't forget to go get yourself a ruler and more wood glue because you're going to have to just figure it out based on a few visuals. Not so in the catapult package. The catapult's instructions were step by step and I used the leftover catapult glue to finish the trebuchet. At least the 2nd box had all the pieces. Now for the finished product. It's very good (I hope it lasts without the dowels). It doesn't fire 30 ft like it says (and we are using coins which are the best counterweight). But we'll try adjusting the pin. Unfortunately, even though the counterweight box hinge holes appeared lined up during construction, when they hang, they are a little angled. It swings but we need to watch clearance. Speaking of the hinge, there should be a pin or a tight washer on the outside to hold the rod in place. Nope again. It slides. Seriously, for $28 this toy should be spectacular but it just isn't. The da Vinci's catapult at $25 is spectacular in every way. The profitability on this is huge. Oakland Ballistics - can you JUST TRY HARDER to get it right so I can rave about it like I do the catapult? Update: Did it last? Nope. It came unglued soon thereafter and has been sitting around. It needs dowels. While you may expect a kid to lose interest, if it falls apart, it isn't even a good looking model. It's now April 2012 and I just discovered my husband threw the pieces in the garbage today. I retrieved them and will find time sometime to glue it back together.

The kit came with all the necessary pieces to have trebuchet model. My 13 yo nephew put the kit together at first. He encountered challenges and was not able to get it functioning correctly, just throwing the ball directly into the ground 1ft in front of the trebuchet. I modified several things to get it working with a final result of throwing a small rock 73 ft! We replaced all of the wood pins attached to the throwing arm, using larger wood pins with a greater diameter. Was a very nice tight fit in the end with very little play. I completely replaced the pouch and used new strings to attach the pouch to throwing arm. The original pouch was not giving a clean release, and was the underlying cause of our issue (throwing ball 1ft in front of trebuchet). The other improvement, to take out the play of the wood pins, was a huge improvement and gave lots more distance, but did not solve original problem. Overall it's a great kit and helped my nephew learn alot about the math and physics of trebuchets. The kit has a few minor issues, which is a very good thing. I've come to understand that a trebuchet requires good understanding to properly setup and use. Working through the small challenges will give a person the info they need to really have fun with a trebuchet. If you are expecting to have a kit for a child as easy to put together as a set of Legos you will likely be disappointed. If you are looking for a solid kit that can teach a child (and an adult to help) how to build and operate a trebuchet you will have a fun bonding experience, a really cool toy and a great reason to buy 20 bouncy balls. I highly recommend this product!!!