The Catapulta: The Roman War Weapon

The Romans spent centuries perfecting their design of the catapulta, an enormous bolt-throwing siege engine; now, a team has just three days to replicate it.

Engineer and eco-warrior Dick Strawbridge challenges a group of modern engineers to rebuild some of history’s most impressive machines and use their 21st-century knowledge to enhance them. Will ancient genius or modern ingenuity prevail when the playing field is leveled in head-to-head contests? The team tackles a medieval machine gun, a Roman war machine, a Byzantine fire boat, a Gothic mega crane, and Churchill’s rocket parachute.

Dick Strawbridge presents the series and acts as ringmaster at Build HQ. "Our ancestors have shaped who we are today. This series celebrates those remarkable people who transformed the world we live in," he says. "It's great fun and a little scary. Even with all our modern knowledge and skills, we struggle to design and out-perform machines that are centuries old using only the materials available to our forebears."

As the challenge unfolds, Dick uses spectacular CGI to explore the original machines and illustrate how they changed history. Meanwhile, the engineers work with historical blueprints, original building materials, and their own insights. At the end of the three days, the new machines undergo rigorous tests to see how they stack up against the originals.