This past Saturday, we once again competed in the annual pumpkin chunkin competition. Our team spent the weeks leading up to the competition working on improvements to the trebuchet to increase effeciency. Thanks to these modifications we were able to get it to perform simliar throws to last year using approximately 30% less weight.
The competition was a very rainy and cold day. Because of this, sadly not many spectators showed up. Also, the competition was limited to just the rounds in the morning wheras in the past the top ranked teams have had additional rounds in the afternoon.
The trebuchet operated well, but threw different distances than we were expecting. This was largely due to the pumpkins being different weights from what we had practiced with. Our throws were as follows:
- 100ft target: 150ft
- 200ft target: 180ft
- 250ft target: 300ft
- Distance throw: 240ft
Next year we are going to try to get a better handle on the correlation between pumpkin weight, counterweight, and throw distance. We also plan to reinforce and increase the stability of the trebuchet so that we can more comfortably add more weights.
Our team ended up in 5th place and Formula won the top prize. Congratulations to them as well as all the other participants!
