On Oct. 17, Henry Ford College physics professor, Jesse Mason, held his annual trebuchet competition for his engineering physics students. If you happened to be on campus near K-building during this time, then you may have seen this competition unfold. Multiple mid-sized catapults lined up by the sidewalk, students gathered in groups, setting up their creations and loading them with tennis balls. Eventually the moment came when team captains aimed and prepared to launch, assured they constructed the best trebuchet they could. They let go and watched their tennis balls fly. Some of them landed exactly where they were expected, some landed further than expected, but one trebuchet did what no one had expected and was never done before. From the edge of the sidewalk, one tennis ball flew so far and so high it didn’t land on the grass, but had hit the second floor of the K-building. There were no close calls or photo finishes, the trebuchet “Steel Rain, Steel Pain” constructed by team E^2=MC had won. They were given the title “Titans of Trebuchet.”

E^2=MC consisted of four students: leader Hussain Alburkat, Moustafa Siklawi, Nathaniel Atkins and Zeinab Bazoun. All of the teams were tasked with planning and constructing a trebuchet, a type of catapult that uses a weight to launch an object over a distance. The groups were given a month to construct their trebuchet catapults. They were also provided the winning model from the previous year’s competition to use as a reference. Using that model’s measurements, team E^2=MC began piecing together their trebuchet.

Initial construction of “Steel Pain, Steel Rain” was going well, and soon the team was ready to test their first attempt. However, they quickly ran into some issues. Hussain Alburkat said, “A couple times we came to the college, to work on it on the lawn, and then we weren’t getting the results we wanted.” Alburkat explained, “We were kinda scratching our heads, of why this is not working. We measured based off of the winner of last year. We thought, you know, they did everything right, but we should have checked with the instructions to make sure.” On top of not performing, the trebuchet also cracked due to the weight being too heavy, so the whole project had to be scrapped and the team went back to the drawing board.

Going step by step, E^2=MC reviewed and experimented with what they had learned. The team told me they decided to use a thicker type of wood in their redesign, going from a half inch, to an inch thick piece of wood in the arm of the trebuchet, and an inch and a quarter thick piece for the base to give the trebuchet a better chance of not cracking under the weight. This had increased the weight from fifteen to twenty pounds. They also used metal washers on the outside but plastic washers on the inside to help with friction and revamped the design of the pouch. Finally they sawed a few horizontal notches at the base. This is where the string holding the pouch would hook onto before the launch, this determined the angle of the arm and would greatly impact the launch itself. After many hours of designing and building, team E^2=MC were ready to put their new trebuchet to the test.

After multiple launches the team recorded each test and calculated the results. When asking the team if there was anything about the science that surprised them, Nathaniel Atkins said, “The value that surprised us the most was the initial launch velocity of the ball. When we calculated it, it came out to approximately thirty-seven meters per second, when it was first launched.” Atkins added, “And we were also surprised how far it went. A couple of our trials went approximately 50 meters, and that’s around 165 feet.” The team explained that this was a great improvement over their previous attempts and this allowed them to feel confident in the days leading up to the competition. Despite great improvements being made, there was work that still needed to be done. Even the night before and the morning of launch day, E^2=MC conducted test launches, added more notches to the base to test different angels, and made small adjustments to ensure the trebuchet operated the best it could.

The team members unanimously felt nervous on the day of competition. Alburkat surmised their thoughts by saying, “We put a lot of work into the trebuchet– even if we didn’t win, like if we got into the top three we would have probably been happy.” Alburkat went on to say, “Just the fact we won brought a lot of pride. You know, to the work we put in, also the instruction we received from the professor, the physics concepts we learned, and actually seeing it materialize.” Moustafa Siklawi added, “Especially since it was a record.”

When asked, what advice would they have for other students, Zainab Bazoun responded with, “I would say to do your research beforehand, because like he said the problem we had with the first trebuchet was we took the measurements of the trebuchet, but we didn’t follow the instructions.”

Alburkat added. “Besides enrolling in the class, they join the engineering club on campus– that they will be able to, maybe set something up like this.”

Atkins advised, “To follow instructions, but also have intuition and interpret something as your own.”

Bazoun added, “I kept thinking as we were making it, not to compare our work to other teams’ works.”

Next year, Mason’s engineering physics students will have the winning trebuchet catapult designed by E^2=MC as their reference to attempt to set a new record.