The Great Trebulation is Brooklyn’s first, only, and greatest trebuchet competition — a community celebration of ancient engineering, absurd spectacle, and the joy of throwing chocolate really far.
For the 2022 edition, our team — The Oppenhurlers — designed and built a functioning trebuchet with a theme inspired by Oppenheimer. Equal parts design project, performance art, and siege science, the build combined repurposed wood, digital fabrication, and industrial design craft into a working medieval “doomsday device.”
We placed second in the "Most Handsome Trebuchet", and were featured in Brooklyn Magazine, an influential online publication that celebrates Brooklyn’s culture, community, arts, and commerce.
Our entry was a Murlin counterweight trebuchet, built within the competition’s size constraint of 3×3×3 feet (arm cocked).
A trebuchet is a specific type of catapult that uses a swinging counterweight to generate force, rather than tension or torsion. This design is historically significant as one of the most efficient and powerful pre-gunpowder siege engines.
The Oppenhurler reinterpreted this system through a design language inspired by nuclear science. The central chassis was styled to suggest a splitting atom, a visual metaphor tying medieval engineering to 20th-century physics. The build combined repurposed wood with 3D-printed parts, laser-cut details, and CNC-machined components, blending traditional fabrication with contemporary industrial design techniques.
Our entry was a Murlin counterweight trebuchet, built within the competition’s size constraint of 3×3×3 feet (arm cocked).
A trebuchet is a specific type of catapult that uses a swinging counterweight to generate force, rather than tension or torsion. This design is historically significant as one of the most efficient and powerful pre-gunpowder siege engines.
The Oppenhurler reinterpreted this system through a design language inspired by nuclear science. The central chassis was styled to suggest a splitting atom, a visual metaphor tying medieval engineering to 20th-century physics. The build combined repurposed wood with 3D-printed parts, laser-cut details, and CNC-machined components, blending traditional fabrication with contemporary industrial design techniques.
The trebuchet was constructed over a series of weekends in Brooklyn workshops and apartments. The process combined hands-on woodworking with digital modeling and fabrication, reflecting the team’s multidisciplinary skill set.
Our group included industrial designers, engineers, set designers, and DIY makers. Each member contributed expertise in materials, fabrication, and visual storytelling, resulting in a project that balanced functional mechanics with thematic presentation.
The trebuchet was debuted at the third annual Great Trebulation on April 21st, 2024, in Bushwick’s Green Central Knoll. Nineteen teams competed, each launching Lindt chocolate truffles as projectiles.
The Oppenhurler team adopted the persona of “siege scientists”, combining chainmail hoods with 1940s-style suits and ties. An air raid siren marked each launch, followed by the team’s refrain of “What have we done?!?!” The combination of performance and engineering earned the Oppenhurler recognition as a fan favorite and Second Place in “Most Handsome Trebuchet.”
Although playful in nature, the event highlights the value of Brooklyn’s maker community — a space where designers, engineers, and artists come together to experiment, collaborate, and share their work in a public setting.
