Message: #1  2022-06-15  

A boomerang (/buːməræŋ/) is a thrown tool, typically constructed
as a flat airfoil, that is designed to spin about an axis
perpendicular to the direction of its flight. A returning boomerang is
designed to return to the thrower. It is well-known as a weapon used
by some Aboriginal Australian peoples for hunting. Wikipedia

catapult, mechanism for forcefully
propelling stones, spears, or other projectiles, in use mainly as a
military weapon since ancient times. The ancient Greeks and Romans
used a heavy crossbowlike weapon known as a ballista to shoot arrows
and darts as well as stones at enemy soldiers. The term catapult too
can refer to these weapons, but more often it designates a larger
engine that is used to hurl stones from a single long arm swinging
through the vertical plane. Nearly all catapults employed in ancient
and medieval artillery operated by a sudden release of tension on bent
wooden beams or of torsion in twisted cords of horsehair, gut, sinew,
or other fibres. An exception was the medieval trebuchet, powered by
gravity. In this formidable weapon, the long end of an arm on a pivot
was hauled or winched down and then released, allowing a heavy
counterweight at the short opposite end of the arm to drop and swing
the long end upward through a vertical arc. Modern mechanisms using
hydraulic pressure, tension, or other force to launch gliders,
aircraft, or missiles are also called catapults. Catapult...