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EPS Hosts City of Elgin Punkin Chunkin

Intro to Engineering designs trebuchet

November 09, 2009

On a beautiful Friday afternoon, Elgin Public School hosted a Punkin Chunkin competition with Pope John. Both schools, including St. Boniface, came out to watch two trebuchets go head to head to see who could launch a 10 lb pumpkin the farthest. The Introduction to Engineering class at EPS had about six weeks to design and build a trebuchet. The design team includes Devin Brown, Anthony Hemenway, Justin Kalhoff, and Justin Reestman.

Through their design research the students learned the difference between a catapult and a trebuchet and decided the trebuchet would provide the greatest launching power and distance. The first design was scrapped due to insufficient materials but a new design emerged when some leftover metal structures intended for the dump were modified for the base of the trebuchet. Most of the rest of the materials came from scrap wood and iron at the student’s houses or farms. The resourcefulness of the students proved to be big money and time savers. Overall the students spent less than $10 to build their trebuchet. The Pope John trebuchet was from previous years with modifications for the competition. The competition was close but Pope John walked away the winner this year. All of the students involved in the competition learned a great deal about the design process and should be proud of their efforts!