Can You Say TRE-BU-CHET? The whole point of this

project was to apply our physics skills to a real life problem…building a trebuchet.

The first thought that came into ALL our heads was…SWEEEET.

What we didn’t know was the sweat and blood that was needed to be put into this kind of project. Screws will be lost, wood will be broken, and kids will be having the times of their lives.

Design We looked at the two trebuchets that were in the

classroom. We also looked online for trebuchet designs. We looked at all what we looked at, and decided to do

the one that we thought would be the best, and altered the design a tad bit. Which was the one by Zack Starr.

The ListItem Quantity Cost

2x4x8 6 $17.46

1x4x6 3 $7.41

Threaded steel rod (1/2”)

1 $3.18

Screws (sharing with other group)

Eye hooks 4 $.85

Wheels 4 $14.68

Thick wire (24”) 1 $.50

Washers (same # as screws)

TOTAL $34.08

Well this is our item list, and at the end wasn’t the same amount of materials that we actually used.

As for the wheels, they made us go way over our budget, so we had to get rid of them.

And we didn’t get washers, we found some on the floor that were unused (supposedly).

The exact final cost, and the amount of materials used, isn’t known.

SUPPLIES!!

Well how else would you build a trebuchet without buying supplies for it?!

So we all went to Lowes, wait, Evan went to Lowes to get the supplies need to build the trebuchet.

Look at that man working hard

Yes, finally, BUILDING!

We knew what to do right away when starting to build.

The base was the first thing I think all of us built.

DISCUSSING

We all obviously saw something we didn’t like.

Just look at their faces…

discussing AND building

We got to workin’ pretty quick.

FEET

Just look at all those beautiful feet.

Oh, and there’s the base too.

Hard working kids

That’s a lot of wood soon to be trebuchets

Seems to me the guys and gals separated for some reason in that group…

Hess

GO GIRLS!

Well look at those guys helping out!

Yes, great teamwork.

Marking territory

Just a Physics student’s way of saying, “This is my wood.”

MUAHAHA, CIRCULAR SAW

Couldn’t cut the wood out in the rain, didn’t want to get the wood wet.

Yea team!

Cody’s got that quick hand.

It’s the arm

Hess and Sims finally get on the key part of a trebuchet…THE ARM

Whoops

Well about this time we thought, “Hey, maybe we should get some bolts for the trebuchet…”

So the girls went to Lowe’s and got the supplies we needed, good call ladies.

WTF!??!

Yea Evan, good job, trying to cut a wire in two with a drill.

Evan’s teammates watch in amusement

The box…

Well um, the box, can’t really say much about it

Great job team!

Well there it is, they got it on.

And finally, LAUNCH TIME

Well it was hard work getting the trebuchet down to the field and set up.

We brought some home weights for the counterweight.

No, sorry, NOW’S launchtime

HAHA, sorry,this slide is just to laugh at their faces.

Duuhhh…

Thanks Grant for the blockage

She looks proud of her trebuchet

She doesn’t look too proud

She looks like she couldn’t care

Bah, short range division

There’s our piece of

Datacounterweight (lbs) distance (yds)

18 15

23 12

23 14

26 15

Inconsistency = bad trebuchet

Trebuchet y = 0.1333x2 - 5.8667x + 77.4

R2 = 0.6667

0

5

10

15

20

0 10 20 30

Counterweight (lbs)

Dis

tan

ce (

yds)

distance(yds)

Poly.(distance(yds))

Trebuchet y = -0.0606x + 15.364

R2 = 0.0202

0

5

10

15

20

0 10 20 30

Counterweight (lbs)

Dis

tan

ce (

yds)

distance(yds)

Linear(distance(yds))

Strong correlation? Yea, pretty close.

Interpretation

Well I think it was pretty cool how all the groups got about the same amount of supplies, and they all varied in sizes and designs very much.

With our trebuchet, I think we could’ve done better with, there’s that word again, CONSISTENCY.

Thanks for having us to this project Mr. T!!

We had tons of fun!!