August 9, 2026
Medieval chaos goes Mach 1
Tom Stanton's supersonic trebuchet breaks sound barrier with gravity alone
He made a medieval launcher go faster than sound, and the comments went instantly feral
TLDR: Tom Stanton made a gravity-powered trebuchet break the sound barrier, turning an ancient siege idea into a modern internet spectacle. Commenters were split between amazed fandom, safety panic, and jokes about accidentally reinventing a terrifyingly cheap weapon.
A British maker just pulled off the kind of stunt that makes the internet yell "this rules" and "should we maybe not?" at the exact same time. Tom Stanton built a gravity-only trebuchet — yes, basically a souped-up medieval catapult — and somehow pushed a tiny projectile to 776 mph, just past the speed of sound. That means no explosives, no engine, no fuel: just a falling weight, a very clever design, and a loud crack in the sky that told everyone nearby this thing was no longer a hobby project in spirit, even if it still technically was.
And the community reaction? Pure chaos in the best way. One camp was in full mad scientist fan club mode, calling the project inspiring and saying it made them want to go build something over the weekend. Another immediately went to the darker, more dramatic question: uh, how do you even test this responsibly? One commenter basically painted a picture of a road trip to a giant empty nowhere-zone because once you fire something this fast, predicting where it lands becomes its own problem. Then there was the classic internet turn where admiration swerved into battlefield brainstorming, with people openly wondering how useful this could be as a low-resource defense system. Naturally, others skipped the ethics spiral and just started posting bonus Stanton content, including links to his other videos and channels like proud members of the fan club. In short: one man built a sonic-boom trebuchet, and the comments instantly became a mix of awe, fear, memes, and please do not arm the peasants energy.
Key Points
- •Tom Stanton's gravity-powered trebuchet launched a 4-gram projectile at 776 mph, exceeding the speed of sound.
- •The machine used a 40-kilogram counterweight, a carbon-fiber arm, and a redesigned 3:1 pulley-driven drum system to increase rotational speed.
- •The final arm weighed 116 grams and was refined after stress tests and failed 3D-printed prototypes showed buckling under sling pressure.
- •Earlier tests reached 394 mph with a 10-kilogram weight at 43.7% efficiency and 716 mph with a 40-kilogram setup before structural failure.
- •The final velocity was calculated from high-speed footage showing the projectile travel 1.94 meters in 5.6 milliseconds, and the launch produced an audible sonic boom.