3

LENS

Left

Alex’s trebuchet has

been featured in two

Instructables books

and in Bre Pettis’s

Weekend project

videos

ALEX

PALFREMAN-

BROWN

Project Maker

Project Link

hsmag.cc/EvJBQZ

A

lex Palfreman-Brown has the perfect

cure for cubicle boredom. All you need

is a handful of paper clips and a pair

of pliers. You can use them, together

with some other pieces of office stationery, to

build a trebuchet that’s powerful enough to hurl

balls of Blu-Tack across the cubicles and wage a

war on your colleagues. Alex shows you how to

first straighten the paper clips and then intricately

shape them into the swinging arm, the axle, the

trigger, and other components of the trebuchet.

You then assemble all of them on a piece of

corrugated card, together with ballast (Alex uses a

bunch of batteries), roll pea-sized drops of Blu-Tack

into balls along with some string, and fire away.

The whole contraption takes about an hour to put

together. The build is so popular that it has earned

Alex several Instructables.com Pro memberships,

which he gives away as competition prizes in the

hackspace he helps run. The evil mastermind is

fully aware of the sinister implications of his war

machine: “If I’m ever feeling glum, I just consider

how many man-hours have been lost internationally

to bored office workers building my trebuchet. That

always puts a smile on my face.”

PAPER CLIP

PAPER CLIP HACKS

MOBILE PHONE STAND

Use pliers to slightly bend upwards

one end of the paper clips. Now

stretch the other loop in the shape

of an inverted V and rest your

mobile phone between the two.

BOOKMARKS

Slightly pull one end of the paper

clip, wrap a piece of paper around

it, and cut it in the shape of a flag.

Then press the pulled end back

into place.

EMERGENCY ZIPPER

If the pull-tab of a zipper is

broken, you can replace it by

looping a paper clip through the

slider mechanism.

FIND THE SEAM ON A ROLL

OF TAPE

Stick a paper clip to the end of a

tape roll to easily locate its seam.

To use the tape, first pull it with

the paper clip and then reattach

it to the end before you tear away

the tape.

SECURE UNRULY WIRES

Loop a rubber band through one

side of a paper clip. Now wrap

the band around a coiled wire and

hook it on the paper clip to prevent

the wire from unravelling.

EMERGENCY HOLDER

Straighten a paper clip and then

bend it in the middle and use pliers

to twist the ends into hooks. Use

one end to attach to a drawer and

the other to hang trinkets.

BIND STACK OF PAPER

Knot a rubber band to one end of

a paper clip. Then run it through

the punched holes in a stack of

papers and hook it to the loop at

the other end.

TREBUCHET