Fire Away!

Building our Fire Away trebuchet was a filled with lots of trial and error. At the beginning we figured out what we were going to build with, which consisted of a wooden base, wooden arms, a couple nails, and rubber bands. We tested our trebuche over and over again and figured out how to make it go the furthest possible distance. We then had to change the Axle height to figure out which height will make the projectile go the furthest distance. We then figured out that the higher the Axle is, the further the trebuche will go. 

Spring constant: How resistant to stretching our rubber bands are: (k=F/d) 428.58 n/m

Initial spring potential energy: The energy stored in the stretch of our rubber bands- (PEspring = 1/2 k x^2) 18 joules

Kinetic energy of the ball: The energy due to motion of the projectile- (KE = 1/2 m v^2) 1.76 joules

Horizontal velocity:How much velocity the projectile had, when traveling horizontally- (v = d/t)10 meters per second

Vertical velocity: How much velocity the projectile had, when traveling vertically-         (v=at)  9.31 meters per second

Total velocity: The total velocity the projectile has while traveling through the air-        (a^2 + b^2 = c^2)13.66 meters per second.

Vertical distance: How far the projectile went vertically- (d = 1/2 a t^2) 17.68m

Reflection

Two things that I think that I did well in this project was collaboration and creativity. I thought I did well in the collaboration aspect, because I never missed a day of the project and I contributed to the building as well as the calculation for the project. I also thought that I did well in the creativity aspect, because we had to continue to think on how to get the projectile to fly further, even when it didn't work. 

Two things that I want to work on in the future is my citizenship and my communication. With both of those things, I sometimes get caught up with finishing the project, and forget how to behave in a group. I sometimes get upset at our productivity and take it out on my group. Even though I have gotten better with that, I still need to work on it.