LaRowe & Reiner 1

Coleman Reiner & Natalie LaRowe

Mr. Hill

Physics

26 April 2017

Trebuchet Project

Introduction

Trebuchets were originally invented by the Chinese in 300 BC. The word trebuchet is

from old French language meaning to throw over which makes sense considering that's what it

does. These 200 pound projectiles launched from the trebuchets soared nearly 300 yards and

destroyed targets during the medieval times. The early versions of these trebuchets were man

powered, but as time progressed, they used counterweights and pulleys to help set these massive

lever arms. Out of every trebuchet, the Werewolf was considered one of the most powerful

trebuchets of all time.

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The main objective of this project is to build and use a trebuchet to demonstrate physics

principles such as energy.

Our source of energy for the trebuchet was a 167g fishing weight. Before we launched

the projectile, that fishing weight was gravitational potential energy. This potential energy was

calculated to be .28 Joules. To operate the trebuchet, you first pull the lever arm opposite to your

counterweight down to the floor. Then you load it with your projectile, which happens to be clay

in our case. Then you pull the sling with the clay underneath through the machine until the

string it tight. While it is waiting to be launched, it has gravitational potential energy. When it is

launched, it loses some energy due to thermal and sound energy, but not an amount significant

enough to calculate. When the projectile is moving through the air it has kinetic energy and also

has gravitational energy when at its peak height in the air right before it starts falling back down.

Procedures

While assembling our trebuchet from a kit, we encountered a few issues that needed to be

resolved before we were able to receive consistent data. For example, the first few times we tried

shooting our trebuchet, the projectile was launching too soon and therefore was gaining lots of

height but not a lot of distance. We adjusted the angle of launch by putting the metal bar through

a different hole in the middle of the launch arm. However, this caused the projectile to launch too

late so we decided to add a large piece of tape at the front of our trebuchets base to prevent our

mass from passing that point and therefore preventing our projectile from launching too late.

There were also some issues with our string releasing from the notch at the end of the launching

arm, so to solve that problem we switched out the monofilament for string, as the monofilament

was too convoluted to operate efficiently, along with shortening the length of the string to allow

the projectile to not have a delay in launch. We also observed that the loop at the end of the
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string was not releasing from the notch when the trebuchet was launched, so we decided to bend

a paper clip and tape it to our trebuchet arm to use as a pin type of hook. This resulted in a well-

timed, successful release of the projectile from our trebuchet, resulting in consistent, impressive

data.

Data

Trial Number Height (m) Distance (m) Time In Air (s)

1 1.03 2.92 0.62

2 1.08 3.05 0.82

3 1.06 3.01 0.73

4 1.16 4.10 1.1

5 1.13 3.87 0.95

Mass of weight: 167g

Mass of projectile: 4.7g

Height of weight immediately before launch: 0.173m

Maximum range: 4.10m

Time in the air for that shot: 1.1s

Height of projectile for that shot: 1.16m

Average launch angle for trebuchet: 15.48

Analysis

Average Initial Velocity: vi=(vx2+vy2) vx=x/t vy=tup*g

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Total amount of energy projectile had: Ek=(mv2)

Percent of initial energy that is transferred from the trebuchet to the projectile: (Ek/Ep) x 100%

Conclusion

When testing our trebuchet, we observed that the the further we pulled down the string

before releasing, the farther the projectile would launch with a higher velocity. This tied very

well into our calculations which showed that a higher velocity means more energy for the

projectile. This is a reasonable explanation because when we pulled down farther, it gave the

weight more potential energy. Also, the projectile gained more gravitational energy the ball

would have at its max height, but it still had the same kinetic energy. This also explains why the

clay that got more height went further, because it had that bit more of gravitational energy.
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The base of our trebuchet was made from a kit, and then we made modifications to get

our projectile launching the correct distance (see procedures section). We worked exceptionally

well as a team. When a problem with our machine came up, we would experiment and

brainstorm how to fix it together and we evenly distributed the work for the project. When it

came to launching, Natalie was good at launching consistently and Cole recorded the data from

our launches.

Cole: One of the biggest things I learned during this project was to think like an

engineer. Our trebuchet initially did not work very well and we were getting very short and

inconsistent shots. So we fixed it with the thing that fixes everything, duct tape. It was also easy

to envision all of the energies that are used in the trebuchet, and it was much easier to learn about

them this way rather than reading about them in a book. It really helped show how energies

work in real world problems and machines which I thought was really neat. I also did not really

know the difference between a catapult and a trebuchet before doing this project so the whole

string detaching part was weird until I realized that the two machines are different.

Natalie: I learned many things in performing this lab. First of all, I previously did not

understand that the launch of the projectile was made possible by the release of one side of the

string. However, after observing that the projectile was shot much more successfully when the

string released, I was able to learn that that was what was needed to have a successful shooter,

and therefore was able to understand how to fix the problem of the string not releasing from the

notch in the shooter. I also learned about how energy is able to be transferred in different

situations, and how an object can have different types of energy at a time. An example of this is
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when the projectile is in the air, it has both gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy.

Finally, I learned that velocity relates to energy in that if an object has more energy, it has a

higher velocity. This was shown in the experiment when the calculated velocity was higher when

the energy was greater. Overall, I was able to learn how concepts I had previously learned in

class could be applied to the real world.

Collectively: We both learned how to problem solve and work together to find a solution

that was easy and a viable options. It also helped us see how energies and velocities are applied

in real world problems and how to solve for them. Overall, we both agree that it was a very fun

project and learned a significant amount from it.

Bibliography

"Trebuchet." Trebuchet. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2017. <http://www.medieval-life-and-

times.info/medieval-weapons/trebuchet.htm>.