3 ms·

What's extraordinary about this? You can get any amount of energy from gravity and transferring it to a small object doesn't sound like an especially complex fe

What's extraordinary about this? You can get any amount of energy from gravity and transferring it to a small object doesn't sound like an especially complex feat. It's one of those influencer videos in which someone devotes a disproportionate amount of effort to accomplish something pointless- Mr. Beast does the exact same without any pretense of showing something useful.

adlpz 2mo ago
You sound fun... This is HN. The trip is the destination, bla bla.
- throw310822 2mo ago
  No, I understand, it's the claim from the very first sentence that "gravity itself seemed to forbid" (reiterated later in the text) that annoyed me. It's just making up a non-existent obstacle to hype up the result.
  - magicalhippo 2mo ago
    It's a bit clumsily written, but I'm pretty sure that's a reference to what Tom mentions in his video, that since g = 9.81m/s^2 you're not getting close to the speed of sound just from falling from a reasonable height, even ignoring air resistance. Thus a traditional trebuchet design cannot reach that speed.
    - throw310822 2mo ago
      But since potential energy from gravity is mgh and kinetic energy of a projectile is 1/2 mv^2, calculating height and mass of a weight to power the projectile is absolutely straightforward. The terminal velocity of a falling weight has nothing to do with it (even historical trebuchets used a leveraged system in any case).
      - magicalhippo 2mo ago
        The point was the leverage can't be simple, like in a traditional trebuchet. Tom ended up with a rope pulling on a cone, with the arm being accelerated over many revolutions before the projectile is let go. Tom explained it much more straight forward in his video, the blog author tried to be fancy and made it worse.
WheatMillington 2mo ago
What a sad and pathetic opinion, especially when targeted towards such an incredible contributor as Tom Stanton, a true educator and an energetic and excited engineering mind.
Mashimo 2mo ago
Mate, you are on HACKERnews. We are all about this.
- throw310822 2mo ago
  Of course, but there is a continuum between "I spent years tackling this complicated problem and the solution will benefit us all" and "I've entered the same McDonald's drive-through 1000 times in one day to order always the same thing". Some achievements are closer to the first end, others lie more somewhere in between.
  - Mashimo 2mo ago
    You will hate his stirling bike. I love his entusiasmen for engineering and having the drive for a multi year project, even when the result is just another trebuchet. All while teaching physic in an entertaining way. I don't get how this is close to driving through a drive through.
srean 2mo ago
Yes right ? How dare someone build something entertaining and tell about it.

adlpz 2mo ago

You sound fun... This is HN. The trip is the destination, bla bla.

throw310822 2mo ago
No, I understand, it's the claim from the very first sentence that "gravity itself seemed to forbid" (reiterated later in the text) that annoyed me. It's just making up a non-existent obstacle to hype up the result.
- magicalhippo 2mo ago
  It's a bit clumsily written, but I'm pretty sure that's a reference to what Tom mentions in his video, that since g = 9.81m/s^2 you're not getting close to the speed of sound just from falling from a reasonable height, even ignoring air resistance. Thus a traditional trebuchet design cannot reach that speed.
  - throw310822 2mo ago
    But since potential energy from gravity is mgh and kinetic energy of a projectile is 1/2 mv^2, calculating height and mass of a weight to power the projectile is absolutely straightforward. The terminal velocity of a falling weight has nothing to do with it (even historical trebuchets used a leveraged system in any case).
    - magicalhippo 2mo ago
      The point was the leverage can't be simple, like in a traditional trebuchet. Tom ended up with a rope pulling on a cone, with the arm being accelerated over many revolutions before the projectile is let go. Tom explained it much more straight forward in his video, the blog author tried to be fancy and made it worse.

WheatMillington 2mo ago

What a sad and pathetic opinion, especially when targeted towards such an incredible contributor as Tom Stanton, a true educator and an energetic and excited engineering mind.

Mashimo 2mo ago

Mate, you are on HACKERnews. We are all about this.

throw310822 2mo ago
Of course, but there is a continuum between "I spent years tackling this complicated problem and the solution will benefit us all" and "I've entered the same McDonald's drive-through 1000 times in one day to order always the same thing". Some achievements are closer to the first end, others lie more somewhere in between.
- Mashimo 2mo ago
  You will hate his stirling bike. I love his entusiasmen for engineering and having the drive for a multi year project, even when the result is just another trebuchet. All while teaching physic in an entertaining way. I don't get how this is close to driving through a drive through.

srean 2mo ago

Yes right ? How dare someone build something entertaining and tell about it.