May 26th to the 29th, 2011 will see a the Great Northern Medieval Fayre descend to fairgrounds between Stayner and Collingwood, Ontario. If you have never been to a medieval fayre, or festival, they are a great showcase of the fascinating history, art, sports and culture of this incredible time period.
The first big event is full-armour, full-contact, jousting. Jousting was a competition between knights, riding at full speed on horses. Each knight carries a lance (a long wooden pole), and tries to knock their opponent off their horse. The sport was incredibly violent, sometimes resulting in serious injuries and death.
Other important events include archery, a falconry show, a magic show, music and dance. Of course, there are the standard assortment of merchants selling crafts including costumers, leather workshops, chain maille artists and many more. Check out the event website www.medievalfayre.com for more information.
The main event to be discussed here is the first annual trebuchet competition. This competition is open to students of all ages, kids, adults, individuals, groups, and business. Prizes will be given away, and there will be trophies for the top three winners. The Trebuchet Competition will be taking place on Sunday, May 29th. Competition rules are posted on the main website, along with team registration.
Now a quick word on trebuchets, in case you don’t know what they are or how they work. Trebuchets are part of the group of machines known as siege engines, which includes ballistae, catapults, and fortified wall scaling machines.
Catapults and trebuchets are often mistakenly grouped together, but they use very different systems to launch the projectile. Catapults use a very simple tension system to propel an arm upward and fling the projectile. One end of the arm is fixed, while the other end is pulled downwards through human strength/simple pulleys and locked to hold the potential energy. Trebuchets on the other hand use a longer arm with a mounted counterweight. The counterweight is lifted using simple pulley systems, then locked in place to contain potential energy. Multiple designs for trebuchets exist, including a modern design known as a ‘floating arm’ trebuchet-just search online and you will find numerous designs.
Look up the fayre online, register a team, and make Waterloo Engineering proud!
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