Science Fair Project: The Catapult

I am Jessica Bogde and the title of my project is, “The Catapult.” I chose to do this project because in the fourth grade, one of my peers inspired me to build a catapult because she built it as her Science Fair Project. I also wanted to do this project because I love building things and this project just added to my experience in building things. I chose to work alone on this project because I work faster when I am independent because other people mess around sometimes. I also chose to do this alone because I couldn’t find anyone that wanted to build a catapult, too. The inventor of this apparatus was the Greek Dionysius the Elder of Syracuse. He invented it about 400 BCE. The inventor was trying to create a new weapon for warfare, and
therefore it became a key weapon in warfare and remained like that throughout the mediaeval times. They used the catapult to launch things such as bombs towards the enemies. Out of all the types of catapults, the Trebuchet was the most accurate and among the most efficient in terms of transferring the stored energy to the projectile. In my catapult, the rope (bungee cord) releases and the payload is launched. The catapult has proven to be one of the most effective mechanisms during warfare. Catapult physics is the use of stored energy to launch the projectile.
The three primary energy storage mechanisms are tension, torsion, and gravity. The catapult is capable of inflicting great damage. The main type of catapults used was the Trebuchet, mangonel, onager, and Ballista. The type of catapult I built is the Trebuchet, which was a battle machine used in ancient times to throw heavy payloads at enemies. The payload was able to launch a remote distance and had the ability to do considerable damage, either by shattering enemy walls down or striking the enemy while inside their stronghold. Obviously, mine doesn’t throw heavy items like the catapults that the army used, but it is a smaller replica of the type of catapult that they did
use. It didn’t take me very long to actually build the catapult.
On Tuesday, September 26, at around 6 PM, I looked for the wood that I would use for my project in my garage. My dad and I found a very long piece of wood that he had from one of his construction jobs that would work good for this project. I then cleaned the dust from that piece of wood and was done for that day. On Wednesday, September 27, at around 2:30 PM, we began building the catapult. It took us around two hours or so to complete it and I was done with the building part of this project. Only my dad helped me with building the catapult. He helped me cut the long piece of wood into smaller pieces and he supplied me with the supplies that I needed for this project. The materials that I used for this project was wood of course, screws, a bungee cord, the covering of a pen, and a plastic spoon. The title of my Science project this year is The Catapult. The catapult was invented as a replacement of the crossbows. As they made the crossbows larger, the catapults became larger as well. At first, the catapult was the weapon of choice in warfare, but as soon as the invention of gunpowder and artillery, the catapult wasn’t used as much anymore. The gunpowder and artillery quickly replaced the catapult and became the weapon of choice. The grade that I believe I should receive is at least an A because I put a lot of work into this project and my catapult shoots pretty far as
well.

Source: Franco Normani, http://www.real-world-physics-problems.com/catapult-physics.html

http://medieval.stormthecastle.com/armorypages/catapults.htm