Cultural Contributor

Cultural Contributor

University of Phoenix

HUM 100 Ð'- Introduction to Humanities

Greg Enos

April 23, 2006

Intro

We learn from our past. The past is often our gateway to the present and our future. Learning from our past helps to better what we have today, while also keeping the past alive and celebrating what the past was all about. A man named Mike Johnson once said, "Why not put forth the effort; why not give back to your community?" (ThinkExist.com, n.d., para. 5). This is where Mr. Ron L. Toms comes in. Mr. Toms is a cultural contributor whose contributions and expertise in medieval artillery, specifically the trebuchet, have brought him much joy, pleasure, and success in life. Likewise, his contributions help to benefit others through education of the ancient medieval world, combined with engineering benefits from today.

Cultural Contributor

Figure 1.0: Mr. Ron L. Toms Ð'- Cultural Contributor

Ron L. Toms (Life Synopsis)

The cultural contributor on which this document was written is Ron L. Toms (see figure 1.0 above). Mr. Toms is the founder of multiple web sites featuring the unique piece of medieval artillery known as the trebuchet. This Learning Team became fascinated with the trebuchet when one of the team members submitted a message in the main classroom on this object and consequently since Mr. Toms has had physical experience with these.

At the age of 12, Mr. Toms became aware of a catapult while researching for a subject to do a project on for a history fair. This meant that he had to build one of these contraptions. He was successful with his project and his catapult was a popular exhibit at the fair (see figure 1.1). His research at the time he was building the catapult made him aware of exactly how this object was used in the medieval times and what an experience would be like to be physically thrown through the air on a catapult (Toms, 1994).

Figure 1.1: Ron L. Toms and his catapult replica Ð'- age 12

Once he reached adulthood and in a mechanical engineering class, he made the decision to proceed with his thoughts about riding on a catapult. He sought out to build a catapult that would do exactly that and with some modern revisions and help from physics and mechanical engineering instructors he adapted his own design, which he called a trebuchet (Toms, 1994).

Later, Mr. Toms developed his web sites and began selling kits to the public via these web sites so that consumers could build their own trebuchet. He invested 14-hour days, 7 days per week and large sums of money to purchase modern power tools to speed the production process of making the kits and keep his web sites current. Just when he thought this idea was not going to be a success, someone discovered his fascination with the trebuchet and from there he was featured in magazine publications and highlighted on certain television shows. His business of selling trebuchet kits reached new heights and he now has a factory warehouse and a staff to produce, pack and ship his products (Toms, 1994).

Cultural Contributions

Mr. Ron Toms is a cultural contributor because he has reintroduced the ancient design of the catapult (or trebuchet), making information about them accessible to the masses via the internet. His main site, www.trebuchet.com, is a valuable source of information of how catapults were used in ancient times, the various designs, and how they were constructed. Instructions for building catapults are available for sale, along with some free plans for people wanting to construct their own. Scaled down tabletop miniatures (Figure 1.3) of trebuchets, mangonels, onagers, ballistas, and even wristwatch catapults are a less expensive way for many people to have a functioning piece of history, and these are offered for sale on the website as well.

Trebuchet.com also contains a link to The Hurl, www.thehurl.org, a network with news about catapults and events, and links leading to catapult miniatures, kit sales and help with building these kits. Visitors can post comments and news, keeping one another informed with what is going in the world of catapults (The Hurl, 2006).

Figure 1.3: Tabletop Miniature Trebuchet

Medieval Specialist

Mr. Toms in his interview indicated that he is "not a specialist of the trebuchet" (R. L. Toms, personal communication, March 21, 2006). However, we believe he is due to the crucial man-hours and research that he accomplished to build an exact design of a medieval version of a trebuchet. He also wanted to use these enormous symbolic war machines as a tool for academics. He facilitates teachings and seminars about physics and engineering for children as well as for adults. Of these academic courses, there are two different curriculums for each group: one for fun for the children (teaching the basics of trebuchets and physics) and a more in-depth version for the adults.

Mr. Toms did not stop at building the basic trebuchet version; he went on and made a second website on the mangonel version (R. L. Toms, personal communication, March 21, 2006). This is another type of catapult that the Romans and Greeks were known to use in there respective time periods. His business was expanding larger than he could ever imagine. Even his friends had doubts about his business choice. Mr. Toms was determined that his business was going to succeed. As he pursued his business dreams his business was getting more popular by the day and Mr. Toms was getting some unexpected media publicity for his business. He had a couple of magazines that wanted to write about his expanding business and Mr. Toms also got more benefits from the publicity when he was asked to appear on Television to explain how these enormous catapult machines operated. Mr. Toms has done well for himself and he is a specialist on how the enormous ancient Trebuchet operates, plus how the trebuchet is designed.

How He Became Involved

As stated previously, Mr. Toms at the young age of 12 became enamored by the construction of trebuchets while doing research for a history project for the county fair in junior high school. With assistance from his father, he "successfully