Trebuchet! All The Way!!! The Construction of a deadly weapon

Launch Day!

Nathan retrieving wood!

Item DescriptionPriceQuantityTotal Price 2x4x8$ x4x12$ x6x10$ x4x8$ Nylon Rope #4 48'$ Sand (50lbs)$ lb Wood Screws$ All bags of eye hooks$ /16" Threaded Rod$ Steel Cable~25 cents/ft4 ft1 Misc$ DuncanPriceless1 For everything that money can't buy, there is white slavery

Trebuchet Lab Report Summary: The original design of the trebuchet had to be changed to keep the cost under $40. It took a while to find the parts at the store since certain parts were not in the store. The start of the construction was slow, but luckily we had two people that had used power tools many times before and knew what they were doing. Although we had some issues within the group, the trebuchet was completed with time to spare. Using scraps of wood from the main parts, a ghetto counterweight box was made. The trebuchet was brought to the field via Jeep and was placed on the field. After a long time of launching, our trebuchet was taken out at its prime when we used it for its original purpose. After bringing it back to the school, we gave it a proper funeral by smashing it into pieces. Experiment: There was a slight linear correlation in the distance vs. counterweight test. Sadly, there were points where the sling would release too soon and the object would not launch as far as usual. This caused us to have very little accuracy in our shots. Overall though, the more counterweight put in the box, the farther the object would go.

Conclusion Finding the optimum ratio of ball thrown (tennis, golf, baseball, 2x4) and the weight used was the most difficult part of the entire day. Through many launches, we have determined that the standard box weight, with a tennis ball is the optimum launch conditions for achieving the maximum distance on launch of the projectile. There is also a point where too much weight will cause the projectile to launch a much shorter distance than with less weight. We found this to be a valuable and educational experience that allowed us to incorporate many principles that we have learned about physics in the past year.

We’re not funny looking and lame like some people So we were able to gather the wood and supplies easily