Maker Interview: Mark Winkler

Mark Winkler will be at Maker Faire, with Mongo, his trebuchet—that’s catapult to those of you who aren’t familiar with medieval weaponry. When not building a catapult capable of hurling a fifteen pound watermelon 240 yards, Winkler is a layout design engineer (aka chip designer). He answered a few questions for us about Mongo.

Austinist: How’d you get into catapults?
Winkler: I have invented things since I was a kid. As a child I built two other smaller catapults of different designs. I built one for my senior year history project, which still resides at my high school 30 years later. The other was when I was around 9 years old. It threw fist size rocks about 90 yards.

Austinist: Tell us about Mongo.
Winkler: Mongo came out of a bet I made with a group of 9 or 10 guys I mountain climb with and do astronomy and other overgrown kid activities with. I shook hands and told them 1 year from now I'll show you a machine that can throw a 16 lb. bowling ball 200 or more yards. And so it was. I spent 6 months designing Mongo and another 6 months building it.It is a counter weight Trebuchet catapult. It operates by dropping a large swinging weight, which pulls up quickly the beam which has the pouch and chain attached. It whips it around in a 270 degree arc and releases it.

Austinist: What’s it good for?
Winkler: We have hurled all kinds of things, mostly watermelons, pumpkins, bowling balls, and fireballs.

Austinist: Any particularly wild triumphs?
Winkler: As far as memorable times, just hearing the crowd yell is good enough. I was part of Make last year and it was fun.

Austinist: Furthest you’ve thrown something?
Winkler: 300 yards is probably the farthest we've ever thrown. The typical hurl with all the weight, which is 1600 lbs. can easily hurl a 14-15lb. watermelon at least 240 yards, and on a good day with everything adjusted just right we have hit many times over this, including one time we hit the 15th green of a golf course, while doing a science fair and destroyed the green, blasting out a hole 3 feet across and 6 inches deep.

Austinist: Where the hell do you find space to practice?
Winkler: We hurl on a regular basis at my ranch in the Texas Hill Country.

Interview conducted by Spike Gillespie

Maker Faire, a celebration of all things do-it-yourself, is taking place in Austin on Saturday, October 18th and Sunday, October 19th at the Travis County Expo Center. Discount tickets are available now through Friday the 17th at the Austin Children's Museum and at Whole Foods on Lamar.