PROJECT SUMMARY
The main question I was trying to solve was if I could make a machine of sorts with simple materials that would allow me to launch something with great precision and speed. My solution was to come with a couple of my friends and by looking at some designs and we ended up making a couple of catapults to serve this purpose.
WHY?
The main reason me and my friends did this project was because when I am with my friends, go to the pool or celebrate some type of festival I've always wanted a way to be able to throw water balloons at a decent rate and power which it will explode but the catapult won't break.
HOW?
Me and my partners we created the project while looking at catapult designs and we decided that this design was the best option for us with the limited amount of materials we had that we all had to share with others and this was an interesting and fun time because it took a lot of trial and error to make the one that we have now.
WHAT?
We found out that we had to make a way that everything was to stay stable while still being able to exert the force and power that we want so it took a lot of trial and error as I have stated and we decided to focus more on power than accuracy because amount of force that we were putting in seemed to be the issue.
SO WHAT?
This was important because now we learnt how to properly make a design to withstand a great amount of force and it will exert a great amount of power which is a good thing but the accuracy might be a slight issue because we focused more on power rather than accuracy but if you use it as a handheld device you should be fine.
WHAT'S NEXT?
If we would have focused on accuracy our design would look more like a slingshot with different settings per se and it would look way more like a slingshot rather than a old type of catapult and it looks way better the way we designed it and we felt that for the situation we were building the catapult for was better to focus on power rather than accuracy but we could have made it bigger and made it for not being a handheld device.
REFERENCES & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Most of our design ideas we got from google or some old textbook that we have read or some other places where we saw designs and my partners in this were also very helpful in the design for the catapult and the people that helped were: F., F., J., and myself we all together came with on the designs.
JUDGES FEEDBACK
What a great challenge! It was wonderful to see that you were originally trying to create a design with great precision and speed. Lofty goals, and a super cool design. Is that a rubberband or plastic tubing? We would have liked to see how the design process changed over time and if you accomplished your goal of precision and speed.