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!