Once again, the team participated in the annual Pumpkin Chunkin’ competition during the Rapid City Pumpkin Festival. This year required a lot more work than the previous few years, as the team made the decision to rebuild the entire trebuchet. The wood on the old trebuchet was starting to break down, and would soon make the trebuchet not structurally sound. Several boards had been broken during previous test fires. The wood was also getting old and fairly dry.
The design for the new trebuchet was similar to the previous one but was simplified for ease of building. The new trebuchet was build using 4x4's instead of the 2x4's we have used in the past. This change made our trebuchet a lot sturdier. A new loading and firing mechanism was also designed, which helped to prevent misfires and critical failures.
At the event, the trebuchet performed as well as in previous years, if not better. The team won the competition with a total score of 966 points! While work on the trebuchet is on hold right now in favor of working on the competition robot, there are plans to improve the new design and make the trebuchet more efficient and powerful for next year’s competition.
