On Tuesday we learned about projectile motion. We watched a video on the punkin chunkin event. The punkin chunkin event is an event where teams launch pumpkins from their highly engineered catapults across a field. I am glad I am not a pumpkin being launched a mile across a field. We then went over our next lab. This week we will be building a catapult to learn about projectile motion. We were put into groups and began to brainstorm ideas on building a catapult. Our group found an idea online that looked like it would work. It was a fairly simple design made out of pencils and a tissue box.
On Wednesday we actually started constructing our catapult. To build our catapult we used our box and pencils to act as the base. We used rubber bands to bond the pencils together. Then we glued a cap to the top of the pencils. We poked holes in the sides of the box so we could slide the pencils through. We need to create tension so we used a rubber band to pull the pencils back. We needed something for the rubber band to latch on to. At first we tried gluing a wooden stick to the middle of the box but it proved no match to the rubber band. After that we tried gluing a wooden spool in the center to hold the rubber band. Once again the rubber band won. We finally came to the conclusion to use a clothes pin to pull back the rubber band and create tension.
On Thursday we worked on our catapults. By this point our catapults were almost done. While working on our catapult we found that the pencil design was not working. The rubber bands that held together the pencils were very flimsy and very inaccurate. We replaced the pencils with a spoon and it worked a lot better. We still used the rubber bands to pull back the spoon and create tension which created a very powerful catapult. This worked a lot better but we needed to use more glue for the spoon because every time we launched it it would break off. We also had to cut out a panel off the box because it was limiting the catapult's movement.
On Friday we did the last finishing touches on our catapult. We made sure that everything was working well. After that we started to test our catapult. I thought our catapult had distance but not accuracy. To help make our catapult have more accuracy we took off the rubber band. This allowed us to have more control on to where it was going to land. When we needed distance we put the rubber band on. We fired marker caps, wooden spools, and marshmallows to test our catapult. I hope our catapult does well in the competition.
This week I learned that group work is possible if work is distributed evenly among the group and if you have a good team.
One thing I can improve on is being a better listener when my coach is instructing me. It is very hard when the coach is my dad! I will definitely try to do better.
For Science Olympiad this week I spent about 2 hours on the bottle rocket, picture this, and the bridge.
For this weeks link it is a video and website. of what punkin chunkin really is.
http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/punkin-chunkin/
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