Fire Away!

Process of Making the Trebuchet

The goal of the project is to create a projecting device that will stay in one place and be reused no matter how many times you chose to use it. We had to include a base that sits on the ground, two legs that hold up an axle, and a lever arm with both a load and an effort end. You can not have any dimensions that are larger than 1 meter. You can set up the project and release it, but we are not able to do the firing that has to be done on it's own. The main part of the project was to see how far we can send our projectile (clay ball) as far as possible.

We were given around two to three days to construct the catapult and make a plan. Once we were done making the catapult we were in charge of testing it out to see how far our projectile went. In class we made a claim and evidence and reasoning poster of our data we collected. Making these posters helped us figure out where the best placement was for for our rubber bands and legs. We also realized that we needed to add a cup for our clay ball to sit in. We tested different projectiles and found that the clay ball worked the best because it had the smallest mass. A smaller mass means it doesn't take that much force to launch it from the arm.

These tweaks on our trebuchet made it run more smoothly and efficiently so it is more improved. With these corrections our trebuchet was able to launch 10 more meters than it was before. It consistently launches around 21 to 24 meters every time.

Proof of Efficacy Document