Why Did I Make the Bean Bag Fling?

Pinewood Derby is synonymous, it seems, with scouting activities and my boys have had more than a few great times cheering on their cars at the derbies in the past.  When I attended my first Trail Life leadership meeting in DC, one of the areas of concern brought up by the grassroots members was coming up with something different as an alternative to the pinewood derby.

Living in Dover, Delaware, I was familiar with the annual Punkin Chunkin event held in south Delaware and televised on the Discovery channel each November (it is now on the Science Channel). I had an epiphany of taking the Punkin Chunkin idea and shrinking it down into a small-scale, derby-sized event for Trail Life.  My hope was that this event would be viewed as a viable alternative to pinewood derby.

The first thing I did was contact the Punkin Chunkin board of directors. They were both gracious and enthusiastic in offering their help. They even invited our troop to come check out a trebuchet in action as well as tour an array of other amazing Punkin Chunkin machines.  The Trailmen had a great time and not only was it a successful event, but I gained valuable information and got some incredible guidance and direction, especially about making it an accuracy competition, from Frank Payton of Punkin Chunkin.

Freak March snow flurries couldn't keep DE-01 away from the trebuchet! 

When I began the process I had several concerns.  First, when making trebuchets, the question of size; how small is too small and how big is too big?  I wanted a competition format that could be held in a gymnasium setting.  And after lots of trial and error, I believe that I have zeroed in on the Goldilocks zone for this competition.  When you have finished building your machines, you should be able to fire accurately from 10 to over 60 feet.  This will do nicely in a gym.

Next, I wanted to make the competition more skill oriented.  During pinewood, especially when boys are younger, the parents usually do the majority of the work on the cars and then, during the competition, the adult leaders run the track leaving the kids to root for their cars from the sidelines. As exciting as this was,  I always felt it would be great if during the competition they could tinker with their cars between heats to make them faster, like real pit crews.  In this competition I wanted the participants to have some control and to have practiced ahead of time to master the skill of firing the machine from different distances.  In the Bean Bag Fling, not only can the Trailmen complete the construction themselves, they will also set them up, aim them and fire them.  With this in mind, the trebuchet design needed to be light enough for even the smallest Trailman to carry and the amount of firing opportunities needed to be enough to get a good point distribution and yet few enough not to take all day.  As a result, I came up with 6 accuracy shots (2 each at 3 distances) and 2 distance shots for a total of eight shots.

Next, I needed a projectile.  Pumpkins were probably not a good choice due to size and the mess they would create. And besides, the name Punkin Chunkin was already taken and truly belongs where it is. So I decided making small bean bag projectiles was the best way to go.  These were easy to make and the weight and size of the bags could be varied (by making several of different sizes and fillings) which would affect distances of the shots.

Last, I wanted to design a trebuchet that would be inexpensive to make with plans easy enough for anyone to follow and build.  The plan I settled upon cost me less than $15 and allowed for the machine, sling and beanbags to all be made by hand, no power tools required.  The plan on this site is exactly that.  These machines are fun to make, easy to fire, can be repaired on the fly and can be enhanced using lots of decorative and engineering upgrades.

Hopefully you will have as much fun holding this competition as I did in making it up.  A final and most important thanks to Jesus Christ for Salvation and Glory to God for inspiring me to minister through Trail Life.

Walk Worthy