Trebuchet Research and building project

Antonio Crouchelli

Freshman physics

Period 1

 

So guys we did it, we reached the end of the trebuchet project, and now we’re doing the reflection. The fact we did research on projectile motion and potential energy, made prototypes then made the final products in two months. It’s phenomenal, I'm just amazed on how they worked and how fun it was. So as you can tell this isn't a sheet of paper we wrote on, we actual went hands on and built something. If you didn't know sheets of paper are a losing it and making typos minefield, when we built trebuchets we made typos, but those were easy to fix. The reason we did this was because it showed us the science behind momentum and energy.

When a trebuchet is cocked and loaded the counter weight stores a thing called potential energy. A counterweight is a large object heavier than the project on the other end of the arm. Potential energy is the energy in which it has the potential to make something happen when under stress such as the counter weight on the trebuchet. The potential energy is under stress when the trebuchet’s counterweight is held in the maximum arc position. When the counter weight is released from the fixed position that potential energy is turned into kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is the energy when an object is released from a position and is forced into motion. So by releasing the counterweight it follows its arc using kinetic energy to move, then flinging the projectile into the air.

Two things in a trebuchet depend on velocity, the counterweight and the projectile. How are these to things fixed? Weight, the weight of the object helps those two factors work. If the projectile is heavier than the counter weight, its not going to launch. So when the counter weight is slightly heavier than the projectile it’ll launch, just not very far. If the counterweight is substantially bigger than the projectile, its going to launch pretty far. Acceleration of the object is going to depend on the weight of the counter weight. Heavier weight equals an extremely fast launch and projectile speed. This all ties in with projectile motion its the speed, distance and arc that the projectile travels in.

The first part of working with my group and being a community of learners is that we had to have collaboration and to have communication. Having collaboration with your group is always an essential, working politely, taking each other up on ideas and helping each other is all collaboration is about. There is also communication, you can barely get anywhere on a project with your group if you don’t talk to each other. To have communication you have to share ideas, tell each other what their job is, tell them when you have completed your job and to tell each other when  something is due. In the trebuchet project both of these were extremely valuable. We had to have collaboration to decide on a design plan, build that design and take each other up on recommendations and help. Communication was also needed badly because we had to tell each other what to do, when things were due, and how to do something.

Critical thinking and creativity are also important when I came to the project. Critical thinking allows the group to make sure that they don't make any stupid mistakes or decisions. Creativity helps the person have new ideas that are original or based off something that was very effective and efficient.