Girls Bulid a Trebuchet

I am a junior in high school and in my physics class we were told to either bulid a trebuchet or catapolt.
We are a group of girls who were able to bulid a trebuchet that went 29.3 meters. 
 

Step 1 Building the base

In buliding a trebuchet, we start by buliding the base with 2X4's.

We use screws to put them together.

The red 2X4 is 20 inches long.

The blue is 48 inches long.
 
 

Comments

[LilyLoo213]

I have to make a trebuchet for my physical science class. We had to launch a golf ball 20 yards. I was wondering how far did yours launch? 

[dchall8]

What are you measuring?  Acceleration but accel of what?  The payload? 

[zexy beazt]

haha

[Kiteman]

Are you sure about your data and the calculations?

300ms^-1 is almost the speed of sound!

Your graph's vertical axis is labelled "acceleration" - 300ms^-2 is over 30g, roughly ten times that of a Shuttle launch!

[zexy beazt]

thtz not fazt at all *zarcazticly*

[lemonie]

Look at the amount of noise on the thing, it "goes backwards" at three points, not good data.

L

[dchall8]

Someone just reinvigorated this I'ble so I thought I'd take another look.  We can't really tell what is going on from the data; however, your "backwards" comment might not be one of the problems with it.  If the weight is heavy enough and the wheels are aligned and well oiled, a trebuchet will roll backwards once the weight is dropped.  I don't remember where I saw that first (History Channel??) but the mechanics of the thing coupled with gravity work together.  They were able to get more distance when the wheels were allowed to roll freely than when they were locked.  When they replayed the profile video in slow motion, the direction of the weight drop was almost perfectly vertical, because the wheels allowed the whole trebuchet to move.  From appearance it looked like the trebuchet suffered less physical trauma from launching on wheels, too.  Without wheels it creaked and groaned. 

[valhallas_end]

If you have no experience with Logger Pro, the program tends to ignore it's own axes and applies a generic label you can change.  The numbers are usually fine (relatively speaking, since the data recorders and output systems are normally suspect), and the output data as well, but I imagine the axes were supposed to be in mm or cm.  It's truly a terrible software package...

[lemonie]

You amuse me, I call SAP financials a truly terrible software package, but a lot of people use it...

L

[valhallas_end]

This is why I want to start a contest to find the world's worst program.  I've heard the label applied to everything from Microsoft Vista to the original punch-card programs.  Personally, I found UCLA's Ion Microprobe control software to be the most inefficient package ever created.
But in all seriousness, Logger throws out the baby, the bathwater, the tub and the whole house's plumbing to boot.

[lemonie]

Half the problem with your search is finding people who have used something really bad and used something 10x better so that they realise it...

L

[valhallas_end]

Very true, but at least many users ask about quality on message boards before purchasing software.  It's worked fairly well in the past for me - if you throw out the overly gloating reviews (often corporate plants) and the hate-mail levels (rival plants, or people who don't understand what they bought), the middle ground acts as a good critique.  Level-headed arguments help do the comparison.
Level-headedness is rare on the Web though...