Speaking of engineering, did you know that when they first put wheels on catapults they found that adding wheels to them made them throw considerably further. No one expected that would happen.
And, the reason why it happened is that when the catapult is ready to fire, the counter weight is on one side of the catapult (or trebuchet). As that counterweight falls, the entire mass of the catapult moves forward to get into alignment with the center of mass of the counterweight. Since this happens during the throwing movement of the arm, the weight being thrown gets an initial velocity due to the movement of the entire catapult, and then the action of the catapult adds to that initial velocity. The result is that a catapult would throw further than it would if it remained stationary.
Just goes to show you that then (back in the middle ages) as now, lots of scientific discoveries were made purely by accident.