Our Uni is having Engineer's Week this week. Today, the egg catapult contest was held. We had six teams compete. Our team, "The J Squad & Dustin," built a new catapult and also used the one from last year for the "JV Squad." The JV Squad ended up getting second place. Our catapult had a few issues during the contest. On our first shot, the wire fell off the pulley. Our second shot was caught be the wind and fell short. After adjusting, the third shot overshot by quite a bit. Anyway, I bring you images and videos:


Dustin, who is 6'5", standing next to the catapult.


Front view of the catapult.


Close-up of the graphics. Chicken done by one of my friends in 3DS max.


Close-up of the other graphic. The catapult's name is the Schultimate Halgrenade (a play on the names of a couple of friends)


The pulley, which the wire slipped off of on our first shot.


The catapult loaded, ready to be fired by pulling the String of Doom.


Catapult after firing.

Last year's catapult, the Sexcellent Gaddypult (again, play on a friend's name).


The two catapults next to each other for comparison.


Another comparison view.


We nailed the frying pan with the Schultimate Halgrenade in practice. The frying pan is 70 feet away from the catapult.


Another team's catapult..err...ballista.


Another view of teh ballista.


Another team's catapult, similar to our Sexcellent Gaddypult. This team ended up winning the competition.


Another view of the winning catapult.

I WANT THAT BALLISTA.

A rather large and nicely made trebuchet.


A very small trebuchet that surprisingly hit the frying pan. What's surprising about it is that they launched it by holding the counter-weight in their hands a releasing it. No fancy release mechanisms for them.


Another catapult, launched by rubber bands.


Another trebuchet that used a bicycle wheel as the axle.


Another view of the trebuchet.

We also took a few videos. (DivX codec)

Our catapult launching

The shot that hit the frying pan.

The very next shot. You can see the consistency we had in practice.

Sorry about the poor quality of the videos, but I had to compress them a fair bit for the web. You can see the frying pan hit clearly on the originals.

Finally, after everything was over, we held an unofficial range competition. We added a second spring to the Schultimate Halgrenade and stretched both as far as we could. After the shot, the force of the throwing arm banging against the rubber bands bent it. You can see that here:

I thought that maybe more people would find this interesting.

This is the first time I've seen it!

Secksalicious if you ask me - but I'd've gone for either a trebuchet or ballista myself

We would have, but for the accuracy issue. Garage door springs give a lot more consistency.

Haha, awesome

Hah, looks like a lot of fun.

What stream of engineering you going into? I'm in my final year of Civils, but did two general years of a bit of everything

I guess I should've mentioned that. None of us one the team, except for one that was busy during building time so he couldn't help build it, do anything related to mechanics. We're all electrical and computer engineers. I'm a computer engineering/computer science major myself.

Haha, despite my Civil degree, I'm doing a programming final year project: I feel more like a computer Scientist every day!

Which one fired the furthest?

We had catapults that fired over 100feet, using only bungee cables (the only device allowed). There were other size restictions too (ours were a lot smaller)

I believe ours shot an egg the furthest, but the ballista shot a golf ball a little further. As for size restrictions, the catapult had to fit in a 3' x 3' square of infinite height before launch. They weren't really strict, as the arm on the big trebuchet extended past. They should amend the rules to say just the base.

Which brought us to an idea. Create a 70 foot long arm and have it drop next to the pan and gently release an egg in it.

The class before us tried that, which is why we had an arm length restriction.

Our scoring was based on accuracy. You gave an estimated range, and you got 10% circle around that mark to hit. (Each ring was a letter grade, all were 10%.) Theirs got the required minimum 10m every time, it was hilarious.

Ghetto Blaster is a Cirrus song.

I thought this thread said "E-wok catapult contest".

L13k, whar ar3 4ll t3h 3w0k5??!!

Pssh. I go to the same school as you, and I still don't know what E-Week is, and I'm a CS BS (soon to be IT CS - mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha)!