Cardboard Trebuchet

The physics principles that are used are newtons laws. The concepts used are that the gravity vector always goes to the center of the earth and that is always the ground so the weights will always fall down once released so the weights will fall forcing the atom upward in to the air. The trebuchet also works by the sling being released from the end of the paper clip which changes the angle the atom is released at. Factors that we can change about our trebuchet are the angle of release and counter weight. 

 Pics of our cardboard trebuchet.

 

On October 11th our physics class visited the Manitoba Hydro thermal generating station and both of the acc campuses in Brandon. The most interesting part of the trip was visiting he acc campuses even though i wasn't and am not thinking of attending there if was interesting to see all of the different shops and labs and every thing they had. In my opinion to make the trip more useful to me we could have visited the other university. I learned that they do not run the coal burning things at Manitoba hydro all the time only on the odd day and that the smoke coming out of the towers s steam so its not as much pollution as you would think there would be.

Egg Challenge Competition Day

 

The Restriction that was most limiting about our container was the size beczuse we could have put more tissue under the egg but it was hard to judge how much to put in because once the egg was placed over top you couldn't teel if there was enough at the bottom.

 

The least effective part of our containers design in my opinion was the supension of the egg having it tied to th lid of the container was ment to kept it from hitting the bottom of the container when landing but im not sure if it was entirely effective. The most effective part of the container was the tissue on the side of the container because if the wasn't any thing there preventing the egg from hitting the wall of the cotainer it would haveit thewall and cracked the egg.

 

For our container to support 2 eggs we would have to adapte it by making the container big enough to fit 2 eggs the we would have to put the eggs in seprate bg that were suspended from the lid at 2 different spots and around and in between te eggs there would have to be extra tissue to prevent the eggs from hitting each other.

 

 

Video of our egg being dropped. Video by Trey.

 

 

 

Picture of our container. Picture by Trey.

Our teams egg results were :

 

 

 

 

Time took to fall 1.29s

 

Mass of the container 76.1g

 

Mass of the egg 57.2g

 

End score of 147.05

 

Our egg survived the fall

 

 

 

The other teams egg results:

 

Team 1) Time of 0.75s

Mass of container 52.2g

Mass of egg 55.6g

End score 0

There egg did not survive the fall

 

Team 2)Time of 0.81s

Mass of container 92.2g

Mass of egg 56.1g

End score 134.86

There egg survived the fall

 

Team 3) Time of 0.24s

Mass of container 72.9g

Mass of egg 56.2g

End score 0

There egg did not survive the fall

 

Team 4) Our team listed above

 

Team 5) Time of 0.41s

Mass of container 229.9g

Mass of egg 59.8g

End score 69.03

There egg survived the fall

 



Egg Challenge Test Day

Our Egg challenge container is a yogurt container with a honey lid. Inside the container is tissue that is insulating our egg. The egg will be inside two bags one of which will be tied to the lid of the container so it will not move as much when it is drooped. Our container dropped at 1 m did not break the egg. Our container dropped at 2 m also did not break the egg. When we dropped the egg at 3 m the egg did not break but when dropped again rolled down the stairs and broke. When we dropped it at 4m the egg broke so we adapted the container by putting more tissue at the top and bottom of the container. Then tested at 5m and just cracked slightly.

The inside of our container. Photo by trey

Our container. Photo by Trey.

 

Testing our container at 4 m. Video by trey.

Testing our container at 5m. Video by trey.

I found the testing part of the bridge the most rewarding because it showed us that our bridge was sucessful in eceding to hold more than the minimum amount of waeight needed.

I think the strenghts of our design was using the truss beams so that the tension and weight would be spread witin the bridge.

I would make sure the bottom was flat because our bridge wasn't flat were it touched the sides so it was a weaker point. It would have affected our bridge because the bootom base of our bridge was still together when the bridge failed.

Som tips are to make sure you allow enough time for the glue to dry. Also to make sure you arent just setting the glued pices on the table because the stick reaaly well.

Our bridge when it broke.

Our bridge.

 

We chosse a truss design it has a lot of supports in the triangular peices so i think it will spread the pressure out evenly with in the bridge. Beacuse the wieght is evenly spread the base will beable to hold Quite a bit of wieght.

Putting the triangle peices on.

Cuttting the hole for the weights to be put on.

Removing the wax paper that stuck to the spegetti.

Putting Glue On some of the support peices.

Making The base Structure.

Putting pressure on the glue so it will stick.

The construction process we have taken is to do all of the pices together . This worked well because we were able to consult on what size we needed to make different peices to make our bridge.

Adding more support.

How our brige looked all weekend drying.