Final Trebuchet Challenge Blog Post Two

-  During the project, although our trebuchet didn't perform as well as it could have, I was still pleased with our results. We went farther than the required distance of 25m (we averaged a distance of 31m).  And in the accuracy part, we didn't come out in last place so I was happy about that!  Our team worked really well together and this allowed for a peaceful building of our trebuchet. 
-  I feel that this activity was very successful.  For future students, I recommend doing a lot of research on the type of trebuchet you want to build. Our team found the floating arm trebuchet on youtube and it inspired us to build our own. All of the videos we watched on youtube about FATs were very successful and I think this made us feel that we could have a very successful trebuchet ourselves. However, I think it would have been a good idea to look for FATs that were unsuccessful and we could have picked out what was wrong with theirs to better our own.  In conclusion, I feel that this was a very successful project!

Final Trebuchet Challenge Blog Post One

-  The first throw we did for the accuracy competition was the best throw out of our three. The next two were not very close to the 15m mark.  I found this surprising because when we were testing our trebuchet, it was throwing consistently and quite close to the 15m marker. However, with repeated use our trebuchet started to wear down and this, I believe, caused our trebuchet to not perform to its best ability.
-  If we had the opportunity, we would probably focus on straightening out our throwing arm.  This would allow it to fall straight down and decrease the risk of it hitting another part on our trebuchet.
-  If I were to design a new trebuchet, I think I would stick with the floating arm trebuchet. Although it didn't perform to the best of its ability on performance day, we saw its true potential when we were testing it the day before.  I would try and design it so that with repeated use, it would not start to wear down.
-  Our current trebuchet might have had a different outcome if we put a new nail in at the end of the throwing arm. This would change the angle of release and possibly increase our distance. The nail started to move in the wood and twist around with repeated use.

Preparing for Accuracy!

For the accuracy part of the competition, our team plans on decreasing our counterweight. Although this doesn't make our throw exactly 15 meters, it does fire the tennis ball closer to the target than our original 60 lbs counter weight. We are excited to see how our trebuchet performs in the accuracy competition!

Competition Day!

The video posted above is one from when we were testing our accuracy. Instead of leaving the two 25 lbs. weights on, we only had two 3 lbs. ones. Our trebuchet still seemed to fire the tennis ball pretty far!

The theoretical range of our trebuchet is an astonishing 126.4 meters! Unfortunately, our trebuchet did not fire our tennis ball quite that far. Our 5 throws averaged out to 33 meters.  On competition day, we forgot to tighten the guides for the weights, this resulted in the weights rubbing against our vertical arm and slowing down our overall throw.  Also, our throwing arm was wearing down with repeated use and was easily moved when firing our trebuchet. This resulted in our throwing arm hitting the wheels which in turn shortened our distance thrown.  Another factor that could have shortened our distance is the air resistance on the tennis ball.  We also used two wheels instead of one to guide the throwing arm. Two wheels allowed the throwing arm to fall straighter, however, it slowed down the throwing arm. Also, our angle of release was a bit higher than the optimum 45 degrees angle.  Any of these factors could have prevented our trebuchet from reaching it's maximum throw. 

This is a photo displaying our trebuchet from the back. As you can see, the throwing arm is a bit tilted. This could have minimized the distance thrown.

Trebuchet Test Day!

Our team decided to go with a FAT (Floating Arm Trebuchet). We were the only group in our class to make a trebuchet like this!  Test day for us wasn't very successful. Our pouch seemed to be holding on to the ball too much and when it should have been releasing the ball, our pouch was not letting go. This caused a bit of stress among our group but the stress was soon relieved when a new pouch was made and the trebuchet worked! We have our fingers crossed that our trebuchet will hold out for competition day. 

Above is a photo of Luke getting our trebuchet all ready to go!

Cardboard Trebuchet Experience

In order to prepare ourselves for building a giant trebuchet, teams were instructed to build a miniature cardboard trebuchet. With this cardboard trebuchet, we were able to identify some principles of physics such as projection, trajectory, and gravity.  Some environmental factors that effect the performance of our trebuchet could be air resistance and gravity. We are unable to change these factors. However, there are some performance factors that can be adjusted to improve the performance of our trebuchet, these are length of throwing arm, mass of counterweight, and angle of release.

Below is a photo of a life sized trebuchet. It's scary to think about the damage this thing could do!

Fernie & Physics!

While in Fernie, I encountered a few physics laws that affected the way I skied. One example would be the friction between my skis and the snow. When the snow was slushie, my skis would stick and not go as fast as usual. When the snow was icy, my skis zoomed ahead of me, I could barely keep up with them! Friction played a big part in the way my skis performed in Fernie.

Medical Physics Challenge Project

Adelyn and I chose to do X-rays for our medical physics challenge project.  We broke down responsibilities for our report, Adelyn doing a description of how the technology works, potential future applications of the technology, and interesting facts about the technology. I'm doing a description and background information of the application chosen, our reason for selecting this X-rays, and a brief historical development of the technology.  We are excited to learn more about our topic!

Egg Drop Competition!

Yesterday was Egg Drop Competition Day! Our team had a very successful run. Our container weighed in at 143.2 grams, the dimensions of our container (l/w/h) were 20cm by 13cm by 7.5cm. The time of the fall was 0.87 seconds and the distance of the fall was 5 meters. Our egg shell was intact after the competition and our total egg points earned was 139.7!

Here is a photo of Kris and I right before we dropped the egg!

Happy Egg = Happy Jon

Our Egg Drop Vehicle!

We didn't run into any problems with the limitations, however, I feel that being able to use a parachute would have improved our design and it might have enabled us to make a lighter container.

I feel that the most effective part of our design was that it is compact. Because of this characteristic, the egg wasn't able to move around in the container, thus diminishing the risk of it cracking. I feel that the least effective part of this design was weight. If we could have found a way to make a vehicle that was lighter, we would have earned more egg points.

In order for our container to safely support two eggs, we would just have to cut out another holder for the second egg. It would sit beside our first egg and hopefully have the same positive outcome as using one egg.

Blog Post Number 3!

Today our group tested our Egg Drop Vehicle. We only broke two eggs! The first egg broke because it slipped out of my partner's hand. The second egg broke because we got a little too confident and decided to drop our vehicle down two flights of stairs - that wasn't a good idea! We made a few changes to our vehicle (hot glue and bubble wrap) and now it is working consistently. The five meter drop hasn't killed an egg yet with our vehicle.  Hopefully we'll have the same luck on competition day!

40S Physics

Today, similar to yesterday, we reviewed the dangers of posting personal information on the internet. We then learned how to add a ClustrMap to our blog. We did some more formatting to our blogs then commented on other classmate's blogs.

40S Physics

Today we viewed a video on the dangers of posting personal information on the internet. We then discussed the importance of carefully choosing what we will post on the internet. We then edited our blogs and became followers of our classmate's blogs.