Classmates successful at launching projectile

  • SHOWING OFF TREBUCHET CREATION—These three Littlefield High School Junior students are shown with the trebuchet they built as a project for Physics Teacher Jennifer Crouch’s class. The students are, left to right, Austin Tyler, Cruz Avila, and Jacob Turpen, who stand with their Physics Teacher, Jennifer Crouch. (Photo by Krista Carpenter)
    SHOWING OFF TREBUCHET CREATION—These three Littlefield High School Junior students are shown with the trebuchet they built as a project for Physics Teacher Jennifer Crouch’s class. The students are, left to right, Austin Tyler, Cruz Avila, and Jacob Turpen, who stand with their Physics Teacher, Jennifer Crouch. (Photo by Krista Carpenter)
  • PROJECTILE LAUNCHED BY TREBUCHET—Two Littlefield High School Junior students Jacob Turpen and Cruz Avila watched as the projectile was launched into the air from their trebuchet. It is the small dot in the upper left corner of the photo. (Photo by Krista Carpenter)
    PROJECTILE LAUNCHED BY TREBUCHET—Two Littlefield High School Junior students Jacob Turpen and Cruz Avila watched as the projectile was launched into the air from their trebuchet. It is the small dot in the upper left corner of the photo. (Photo by Krista Carpenter)

Monday afternoon, I had the enjoyment of watching some very inventive young men at Littlefield High School, as they proudly showed off their trebuchet creation.

Jacob Turpen, Cruz Avila, and Austin Tyler, all Juniors at Littlefield High School, have been extremely busy on their version of a trebuchet, in Mrs. Jennifer Crouch’s Physics Class.

The young men were given a choice to do an assignment, along with a presentation, which would include a graph on one of the following:

1. An air cannon

2. Centrifugal machine

3. Torsion

4. Catapult

5. Trebuchet

These industrious students took on the challenge and chose the trebuchet, after witnessing a larger version used for “Punkin Chunkin,” and then wondering how they could win at that.

Their assignment consisted of doing their research on the trebuchet, of course building the machine, and then a 3- to 5-minute presentation of how it worked, plus they were to draw up a “graph of motion” illustrating how the creation worked.

Mrs. Crouch said the boys had first tried a 100-lb weight, but it caused some damage to a part of the trebuchet, due to its weight being too heavy. At that point, they decided to lower the weight down to 25 lbs, and that worked very well.

Jacob Turpen, stated: “The trebuchet was based on a 133-to- 1 ratio, based off of a projectile.” Jacob further explained: “I was the ‘engineer’ in this project, Cruz was the ‘researcher,’ and Austin is the ‘projectile retriever’!”

As you can tell by the photos, these young men made quite a trebuchet and it was my pleasure to be able to watch the results of their many hours of hard work and research, in action.

Jacob, Cruz, and Austin, we wish you all well on every future endeavour you face, and there’s no doubt you will all succeed and go far.