Greek invention project
The Trebuchet
One of the most useful techniques of ancient warfare was having a longer firing range than your opponent, A useful tool for this might have been a catapult, or even better a trebuchet. A trebuchet is very similar to a catapult, but instead of pulling the weight back to create elastic potential energy, a counterweight and peg is used so that less manual labor is required.
Sketches
These are the design sketches for our trebuchet. we had to make exact measurements, and our model ( which we created from these sketches) could not be bigger than 50cm-50cm. we had to draw a side view, top view, and a front view. we then pasted all of these sketches on to a board along with a description of the invention we were creating.
When ever you build something you should have exact sketches with exact measurements so you can have exact blue prints for you model. We had to make several revisions to our blue prints because there were some serious flaws in the design but in the end they were perfect. |
Google Sketch-up
Google sketch-up is a program that you can use to make 3-D models. We were all required to make a Google sketch-up of our model (ours being a trebuchet). I believe the Google sketch-up was more for show than any thing because we only used it during the exhibition, but it was also useful when we were building so that we could really see what the model should look like and what materials we needed, where as the plain sketches wee a little bit harder to read and could be a little confusing.
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Prototype
The prototype was build out of card board. I did not do that much work on the prototype most of it was done by killian ( one of my group members ). From the work that i did do on it i gathered that it was very hard to put together because of the flimsy material and how thin it was. ( i spent most of the time cutting out card board ) The prototype is surprisingly close to the sketches that we drew. The prototype did not however have a counter weight and the arm did not move very smoothly. Making the prototype was very important because it allowed us to fix flaws in the design and make it more durable.
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Final Model
The final model was what i spent most of my time building. Carlos and i spent a lot of time looking for wood, looking for screws and looking for various objects we needed.
The most challenging part by far was looking for wood that we cold use without having to alter it too much. At first all the wood we could find were 2x4 so we asked Mr. Major and he told us exactly were to look in order to find smaller wook we ended up using 1x1/2 pieces of wood because it was a lot closer to the size of the wood on the sketches. The final model is not exactly like the sketches but it is very close. When we were building the model we used a large array of power tools such as a Drill, chop saw, impact wrench, jig saw, and circular saw. Many of these tools i have used before i started this project both in school and out. |