A trebuchet, an ancient siege weapon

The educational link between The Hill School and Charterhouse School in Godalming, England has become even stronger with the inception of The Hill-Charterhouse Challenge Cup. Ryck Walbridge, Hill instructor of science, and Stephen Hearn, Charterhouse chair of the science department, first hatched the idea for a competition between the two sister schools last year. “We thought this would be a great way for the students and teachers of both schools to learn more about each other,” says Mr. Walbridge.

In this inaugural year of The Hill-Charterhouse Challenge, students from each school have been building and refining their own trebuchets; the trebuchet was an ancient siege weapon. Following a competition in England (completed in early March) and a second at The Hill (scheduled for later this month), the school whose trebuchet catapults the farthest and most directly will be declared the winner. The winning school then will have the opportunity to choose a challenge for the next year.

A test launch was held Feb. 20 on Hill's campus.

Under the guidance of David Wolter, Hill instructor of history, and Luke Block, director of Hill’s woodworking program, six Hill students have designed and built several prototypes and two full-scale machines. On February 28, five students, Mr. Wolter, and Mr. Block travelled to Charterhouse with their most efficient model for the first round of trebuchet competition. Hill's student "ambassadors" were Stefan Grecu '05, Brett Leister '04, Alex Giannattasio '05, Rob Klink '04, and Matt Lukens '04. The Hill -- using its "floating arm" trebuchet model, one of several trebuchets built by Hill students -- won Round One of the competition.

Wolter noted that the event included four phases: distance, accuracy, target shooting, and efficiency. Hill won the distance phase by 10 meters; Hill's trebuchet fired its croquet ball approximately 46 1/2 meters (or 153 feet, 8 inches). Charterhouse's trebuchet won the accuracy test, coming about 10 centimeters closer to the designated line. In the target competition, which involved shooting three croquet balls (one by one) to get closest to a target, Hill again won. Finally, overall efficiency was determined using a mathematical calculation, for which Hill received a 54 percent, and Charterhouse a 51 percent.

While in England, the students and faculty stayed with Charterhouse students and faculty on the charming campus. The Hill delegation visited such sites as the Tower of London, the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, the British Museum, the Imperial War Museum, Leeds Castle, cathedrals and other sites in the city of York, and the Portsmouth Naval Museum. At the end of March, the Charterhouse group will travel to The Hill to finish the trebuchet competition, and the British students will sightsee in the U.S.