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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: We're Smart happens him Marshall Brain with today's question, how

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Speaker 1: does a catapult work? There are three different technologies that

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Speaker 1: fall into the catapult category. They include the catapult itself,

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Speaker 1: the ballista, and the tributche. The catapult is a winch

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Speaker 1: down bucket that people normally think about when they hear

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Speaker 1: the word catapult. A ballista is a very large crossbow.

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Speaker 1: A tributee is a weighted beam that swings a sling

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Speaker 1: carrying the projectile. Both catapults and ballista's work by storing tension,

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Speaker 1: either in twisted ropes or in a flexed piece of wood,

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Speaker 1: in the same way that an archery bow does, but

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Speaker 1: on a much larger scale. A tribute tends to be

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Speaker 1: easier to build because it consists simply of a pivoting

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Speaker 1: beam and a counterweight that rotates the beam through an arc.

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Speaker 1: Catapults can launch things a fair distance. Five hundred to

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Speaker 1: a thousand feet is common. It's surprising how much energy

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Speaker 1: they can store. The winch is important on a catapult

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Speaker 1: because the winch allows one person to put a great

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Speaker 1: deal of energy into the catapult over a long period

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Speaker 1: of time, then all that energy releases at once throwing

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Speaker 1: the projectile. Do you have any ideas or suggestions for

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Speaker 1: this podcast? If so, please send me an email at

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Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on

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Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, go to how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com