Fire Away!

   We built a trebuchet/catapult that was able to launch an object far and efficiently. Our base to the top of the arm length is 1m by 1m. It had to fit inside a 1 meter stick. Our legs are built at an angle to make the arms more stable and hold better for launching. We drilled 1 hole in each arm and 1 hole in the axle to be able to put the metal tube in. This made it easier to spin. We also attached  nails to the top of the base and at the top and bottom of the axle to be able to attach the rubber bands to and where the object would launch from. 

Our machine has lots of advantages and can perform really well when we run it. One of the things that it does well is that it gets the job done. It's a very reliable machine that when put to work, you know that it will perform. When recording our launches they were very similar in numbers. We used roughly about 6-8 rubber bands each trial and our distances ranged from 29-32 meters. Our furthest distance was 32 meters which is about 35 yards. We kept our machine in the same spot the whole time so we would get accurate results. 

• Mass of projectile: The weight of our projectile was = 0.006kg

• Horizontal distance: How far our projectile travel= 32m 

• Time in air: How long it took the projectile to hit the ground from when it was launched=2.4sec

• Vertical distance: How high our projectile traveled vertically=6.9m

• Horizontal velocity: The average speed of our projectile on a flat surface= 14.1 m/s (31.5 mph)

• Vertical velocity: The average speed our projectile was going up or down= 11.7 m/s

• Total velocity: The total speed including horizontal and vertical components=18.31 m

•  Angle of release: The angle of which the projectile leaves our catapult=6 degrees

• Spring Constant: How resistant stretching our rubber bands are=265N

• Initial spring potential energy: The energy stored in the stretch of our rubber bands=52.95J

• Kinetic energy of the ball: The energy due to motion of our projectile=41.8J

• Percent energy converted: The percentage of how much potential energy is converted into Kinetic energy=91%

    In the project we got to pick our parners that we thought we would colloborate well with. We had a week to brainstorm and build our trebuchet. We got to work quickly. My partners and I problem solved and communicated really well. 

     We built two differnt trebuchet because our varible that we tested was, the number of legs. We learned that the number of legs on our trebuchet didn't effect the overall ending. With that, we recored our numbers and most of our numbers were around the same. Our furthest distanced launched was 32 meters. 

     Overall, this project went really well. We all worked well together and I think this project really helped me understand the overall concept of projectile motion. I think I was well prepared for testing by being super involved in this project and taking the time to do things right so I can prepare myself for future work. Someting I want to work on better in the next project is courage and critical thinking. I think I can help out a little more on the math part and being more involved in that. I was gone the day my group did that part but next time I can be a little better about that.