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.