Catapult and Physics
Entry posted by hannahz
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Over the course of October, a catapult project was assigned. While my team and I started working on it, i realized alot of physics goes into a catapult. In order to get the catapult to launch the farthest, you want it to shoot at a 45 degree angle. Also when making a catapuly you have to figure out what is the best way to build it so it will be able to shoot the softball the farthest. When building, we decided to make it so that the sides and base were very stable. We figured that by doing this it would allow for the arm to swing fast and not move the sides.
Also when making the catapult, i realized that you can use kinematic equations to find out any of the variables. Because the catapult produces a projectile, you can use horizontal and vertical equations to solve and find velocity, distance, time, or acceleration. I think its very interseting that by having just three variables you can solve for any of the five. When launching the catapult, we will have the distance and time and we can make some assumptions for the third variable. So we can find the velocity.
Overall i think the catapult was a good way to be able to build something and see how physics is really involved.
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