THREE lads are living out every boy’s dream - after building an arsenal of giant, historical catapults and crossbows.

James Harrison, 19, Daniel Hickey and Philipp Lyangzuov, both 18, have built two trebuchets.

The trio have also created homemade ballistas and onagers.

James said: “It started out with a Greek project when we were 13 and me and Phillip both decided to make ballistas.

“That started us off, then we finished one, built the next one and built the second trebuchet with everything we had learned from our previous projects.

“We just all came together and we were all very practical thinkers.

“The final trebuchet was the creme de la creme - for me it was the ultimate thing.

“It was our dream to fire it. Doing it was absolutely magnificent.”

A trebuchet is a catapult with a long arm - used as a powerful siege weapon before the invention of gunpowder.

Their enthusiasm drove the teens to start the build before their Greek project had even begun - so much so that when the teacher cancelled it, they had already committed.

The trio, who knew each other from school, sketched the designs for their later contraptions on the back of homework sheets and planned them out when sitting next to each other in Physics.

They were able to find out how to make the ancient machines by trawling through YouTube videos.

As many as 20 have now got in touch with the group - who go by Trebutok on social media - wanting to follow in their footsteps.

James, of Auckland, New Zealand, but who has family in Banbury, near Oxford, continued: “If you want to build a trebuchet you have got nothing stopping you, as we have proved.

“We were just three idiots from New Zealand who wanted to build a catapult.

“We just went out, bought the stuff and built it.

“There is a lot more too it than meets the eye but overcoming those challenges is the most fun.”

Phillipp and Daniel are now at Canterbury University studying studying science and engineering, while James is off to aviation college next year.

They made the ballista with off cuts from James’ parents’ new dec, but had to buy wood from the local hardware store for the more complicated onager and trebuchet.

But they ended up building their projects on the driveway, after getting kicked out of his dad’s garage for leaving wood shavings on the floor.

The trio learned to weld for the project, with James having been taught woodworking by his Naval engineer granddad.

The ballista and onager took James, Daniel and Phillip thirty hours to build, meeting up every Sunday to work on their project.

James says that it was his teacher, Paul O’Connell, who sparked his enthusiasm for the subject.

He said: “I had the best teacher for Classics in the world - he thought our project was absolutely awesome.

“He really boosted our ambitions.”

The first trebuchet then took them 50 hours, with their most recent catapult taking a stunning 100 hours plus.

Working in full Dangerous Book for Boys fashion, their safety wasn't their priority, with one of the boys sitting on the catapult arm while they welded the bucket.

Without the technical equipment, at one point Phillip was using a wire-mesh bin as a welding helmet.

Jame said: “There is no safety manual for a trebuchet. You just know not to stick your head in the arc.”

On the first time they fired their machines, it never worked properly.

But after working on the machines, they have managed to fling projectiles from the ballista and onager to as much as 100 metres, with the trebuchet firing rocks to 200 metres.

James laughed: “We had no way to test it, but we have a long driveway.

“So we just waited until there were no cars.”

They later used it in their school fields, with one trebuchet going to a local farm where they had room to test it.

Their most recent build is currently sitting on James’ parents’ driveway while he is at University.

Their TikTok account now has a following of almost 20 thousand, with one video of their trebuchet firing gathering more than 1.3 millionviews.

James added: “I posted it one night thinking it might do ok.

“I woke up to a message saying: ‘Oh my god - this has blown up!’

“It’s been quite funny.”