After a Science Olympiad meeting in my sophomore year of high school, my friend Patrick and I found a drawer full of scrap wood. I picked up a small square of wood, made a few cuts, and tied a rubber band to it.

We tried to fire some thin balsa sticks, but they would just flutter out of the makeshift pistol; it was a primitive beginning.

The next day, I walked in and saw Patrick building something I’ve never seen before. It was a wooden T, where the vertical part of the T had a slot to house the projectiles and the horizontal portion had a long loop of rubber tied to both ends. It was a crossbow! And it was able to fire those thin balsa sticks fairly well! I got excited and started to build my own crossbow right away. A couple more friends joined us and soon Science Olympiad had a firing range and an ‘armory’ (the top shelf on the cabinet below) full of weapons.

To be honest, it became a bit of an obsession. We created more and more crossbows, all with different mechanisms and ridiculous features. We added red dot scopes, laser sights, longer barrels for accuraccy, ergonomic leather handles, and working triggers. The crossbow I made shown below was inspired by a double barrel shotgun—it was able to fold and fire two bolts at the same time.

One time we found a 3-foot-long wooden stick with a bore running down the side. Naturally, we turned it into a crossbow. We ended up calling it the mega crossbow because it was so powerful that it usually shattered every wooden projectile it fired.

The crossbows were present outside of our afterschool build sessions too. I remember in my high school woodshop class the teacher had put up a project where we were supposed to build a toy. So, I made a crossbow. Unfortunately, the crossbow may have worked too well and was able to lodge wooden sticks into corkboards. :D

And that’s why when the teacher assigns that project now, he explicitly states that weapons are not allowed.

Tech: Woodworking