In all archery contests the target faces directly towards the archer. In the halfbaked variation I am proposing, the same targets are placed flat on the ground at an expanded distance from the archers.
This means that archers will have to shoot their arrows upwards in high reaching parabolic curves in order to hit the target.
The targets themselves will be slightly larger, (to make it even possible) and the angles of impact will also be measured, with those being closest to ninety degrees awarded extra points.
Nocturnal variation features flaming arrows, a series of smaller targets but they are soaked in petrol, the winner being the archer who sets the most targets on fire.-- xenzag, Aug 24 2024 Archery golf challenge, just as Poc said. https://youtu.be/BM...si=Xkh-vUO9W5sb8uv- [21 Quest, Aug 25 2024] Fire arrows > European ones rather than Chinese ones. https://youtu.be/xN...si=-o0peMVho3Z-DYZfI think this one may have had some details on some of the formulas used. [Skewed, Aug 27 2024] Yes.
Why stop at fire? Make the targets explode!-- Loris, Aug 24 2024 Firing straight up to hit a target on the ground?
Very baked by a guy in 'period costume' I saw doing demonstration archery at one of our castles when I was a kid .. and he very definitely didn't 'invent' it either, I'm feeling the urge to cry wkte .. same goes for fire arrows, mixing the two I feel sure has been done before somewhere or other.-- Skewed, Aug 24 2024 //Very baked by a guy in 'period costume' I saw doing demonstration archery at one of our castles when I was a kid//
Fair enough, but I think the idea was that it could be an official sport, maybe in the olympics or something.
Admittedly the idea text could make that clearer.-- Loris, Aug 24 2024 I wonder whether it isn't done already because it would be much harder to protect high trajectories from the wind. There's no point playing at high level if the score has a significant random component.
So given that the olympics is introducing increasingly technical sports like boulder climbing and trick skateboarding, maybe its time has come.-- Loris, Aug 24 2024 Well now I've got to go and see if Archery was named so because of the arch of the arrows path.
...
Nope. It's after Arcus meaning bow.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 24 2024 This is not a new idea, sorry [xen], I used to play it a lot, we called it "archery golf", there are different versions, my favourite was a kind of "free range" version out in parkland, and one person would select a target e.g. "the tree stump to the left of those two oak trees" and then each person would shoot, the person whose arrow landed nearest the target would choose the next. However this is not easy to play because you need a large expanse of private land to play safely.
Shooting high like this to drop the arrow vertically onto the target is called "lobbing". The arrow tends to drop nearly vertically just from the wind resistance of the flights scrubbing off the horizontal velocity.
Lighting things with flaming arrows is normally done by lobbing because flaming arrows usually fly slower (because of the wrapping around the tip and the need for bigger flights to keep the thing stable). Also because if you shoot a flaming arrow too fast horizontally it leaves the flame behind... easier to shoot more gently upwards. Its very embarrassing standing with a flaming arrow, and shooting dramatically towards the target... and the arrow goes out...-- pocmloc, Aug 24 2024 Show me where it's described as being part of an actual archery contest.-- xenzag, Aug 24 2024 All archery is parabolic.-- minoradjustments, Aug 25 2024 This absolutely HAS to be a thing.-- 21 Quest, Aug 25 2024 admittedly not archery, but lawn-darts is exactly this.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 25 2024 //All archery is parabolic// only when played in a vacuum, and then you have the difficulty of ensuring the arrow hits the target point-first.-- pocmloc, Aug 25 2024 Wait, wait, can we please go back to exploding checkers for a minute?
Will they explode when they get kinged, or does the checker that gets jumped over explode, or does each checker have a random timer and you don't know when it will get all 'splodey?-- normzone, Aug 25 2024 Also vacuum archery with flaming arrows is quite hard since you need a supply of oxidiser as well as fuel-- pocmloc, Aug 27 2024 Oxidiser? as it happens not a problem, most (all even?) 'traditional' (medieval) fire arrow mixtures do have a large oxidiser content, helps keep them burning in wet and windy conditions, and makes it hard to douse them at the receiving end, which was considered an advantage.
Iron oxide (rust) is one I remember mention of but it's not as effective as the apparently more commonly used one I forget and would need to go looking for material to reread to name.-- Skewed, Aug 27 2024 That's the Chinese [a1], European fire arrows were a gunk of tar & pitch (the plant derived versions), oils (vegetable) and fats and bound with cloth .. I seem to recall rust (iron oxide) being mentioned as an oxidiser used in some but seem to recall it wasn't what was normally used, have a feeling the normal oxidiser in the mixture might have been quicklime (calcium oxide, CaO)?
Hmm .. <linky> .. maybe it was Saltpetre (sodium nitrate, NaNO3)?-- Skewed, Aug 27 2024 Lawn darts with a bow.-- tatterdemalion, Aug 27 2024 I'm surprised no one has posted an idea for drone golf, with some sort of obstacles which must be negotiated around and between on the route to each of the holes.-- xenzag, Aug 28 2024 [poc] All archery IS parabolic. After you figure in weight of the load, flight characteristics, and energy applied, you add in windage, altitude, temperature, barometric pressure, and Coriolis force, if necessary. But you always start with a parabola.-- minoradjustments, Aug 28 2024 random, halfbakery