Year 6 Medieval Siege Weapons

Under Mr Baker’s guidance Year 6 here at the weekend were asked to build their own medieval siege weapons. Initially we made a Perrier. This is the simplest of the weapons to build basically involving a long lever on an ‘A’ frame. The firers would load the weapons and others would simply pull down hard on their ropes, causing the lever to fire its projectile. Having successfully built that before break we moved onto individual manganols. Rather than the twisted rope that medieval warfare demanded, we did resort to elastic, but if we had twisted the rope to the extent necessary, then the frames would have collapsed! By the end of the session, all had built a working weapon and following subtle adjustments, some were able to fire their cork projectile quite a distance. Thanks to Mr Baker for all his hard work.

Click here to see some photos