The Learning Experience

       I have finally finished my catapult project and believe it or not, I learned quite a bit! My first model was made completely of wood, with a long arm and a stop. It looked similar (but not the same) to this one.

 It was a complete failure. The ping pong ball went 10 feet.    

Then, I put on a plastic spoon.

          12 ft. Failure for me. I continued to play with the stop and length of the arm, when it occurred to me. Maybe I should try a shorter arm. From there, I took the remainder of the wooden dowel from cutting it, and stuck half of a ping-pong ball onto it to form a bowl. I then attached it to the catapult.

It went about 17 ft. at the most. It seemed like it was too heavy and that the arm did not have enough momentum. So, I took off the dowel/arm thing and put on a smaller and shorter spoon. This one had a plastic scoop that had a bowl shape. 

          The only problem: it shot the ball down, so that it did not have much of an arch. I took that off and decided to go with a regular soup spoon. This was my final design.

         My ping pong ball has an average flight of about 23 ft. and it is working really well. It seems to have the perfect ratio of arch to distance. 

Overall, I learned a few basic points:

-shorter arm= more distance, less arch

-add a tail to keep the back of mousetrap from messing up trajectory

-stop do not always work

-fancier is not necessarily better!

I had a lot of fun with this project!

Catapult Pun

History Of All Catapults...Ever. (Part 2)

      So, my mom's last name is Bothwell. You may be wondering what this has to do with catapults. Well, as a matter of fact, Bothwell is what it has to do with catapults. One of the most famous sieges in which catapults were used, was the 1301 Great Siege of Bothwell Castle in Scotland. Edward I of England besieged the castle more than a couple times with a force of nearly 7,000 and with the help of several catapults. The siege lasted for about 3 weeks and much of the castle was damaged. After, the castle switched possession a few more times before finally resting with England.

Works Cited:

Google Images

http://www.midrealm.org/mkyouth/links/catapults.htm

http://www.historvius.com/bothwell-castle-1175/

History Of All Catapults...Ever. (Part 1)

          Ok, so the first thing to know about catapults is: What is it? The definition of a catapult (according to Merriam-Webster's dictionary) is a military device used to launch missiles. Generally, it is a mechanism that is designed to store energy and then quickly release it in the form of potential energy to fire a projectile. Drawings of catapults existed in China around 3rd and 4th century BC. They were designed a lot like a crossbow and were about 8 feet tall. The first catapult, however, was invented around 400 BC in Syracuse, Greece. It was called the Gastraphete, was pointed at the ground, and it was very difficult to set and fire. The Greeks were immediately impressed with its ability to destroy and created a bigger version called the Ballista. Hoping for greater efficiency, they added cranks on the end. This way they could be operated by only one or two men, while the others fought. The Ballista was a great success. Later, in the Middle Ages, something called a trebuchet was created. Instead of using tension or a spring as the power source, the trebuchet used gravity and weights to launch the projectile. Speaking of, there are four different sources of power for a catapult: tension, torsion, traction, and gravity. Catapults that used tension, had a long throwing arm, so that when the arm was brought back for launch, the arm would not break. Torsion-powered devices used a crank to move the arm back for launch. Catapults that were traction-powered, such as a trebuchet, used a person as the power source. The arm would be horizontal with the opposite end up in the air and the projectile end towards the ground. Then, the men would bring down the opposite end and release the projectile. As for the one powered by gravity, a counterweight was built into the other side of the arm opposite the projectile. When the projectile side was released, the counterweight would pull the other end down sending the projectile flying.
         Today, catapults are not really used anymore, but in their time, catapults were a revolutionary weapon!