Chuck For STEM

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  The almost finished trebuchet

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  The 3D Printed Trebuchet Kit

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  The plans

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  Trebuchet Prototypes and Prorduction

Inspiration

We were inspired by the many creators who inspired us to become engineers. These creators inspire, not through success, but through process. I learned how to use so many tools by watching people go through the process of using them and following along.

What it does

In simple terms, our project is a large trebuchet for demonstrations and 4 small trebuchet kits for kids to follow along with. What does it do? It throws things, really far.

How we built it

We broke up the building process between both of us. Luke did the majority of the planning and assembling for the large wooden trebuchet. Colin assisted Luke whenever possible, while also designing and 3D printing a kit for children to use to assemble their own, safer trebuchet.

Challenges we ran into

Once you see the size of the trebuchet, it will become very obvious what challenge we ran into. Size. The trebuchet is 10 feet long and over 6 feet tall. That is a lot of materials to gather, let alone assemble. The distance from Lowe's and the lack of cars in our group made it even worse. We managed to get around these challenges by planning thoroughly for the first 12 hours of the hackathon.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Colin is proud of being able to simplify the trebuchet kit, so that it could be entirely 3D printed in one go. Luke is proud of the shear size of the large trebuchet. As a group we are all definitely proud of how much we were able to get done in the last 12 hours.

What we learned

The main concept we learned was how difficult it is to make a project approachable for other people. If we were to tell ourselves 72 hours ago we'd create this beast of a project, we would be overwhelmed and have no where to start. But we need to make it approachable to people that have never worked on a project like this.

What's next for Chuck For STEM

We plan on doing a myriad of tests, so we know exactly what perameters to run the trebuchet under for the most consistent results. This will give us the confidence to finally approach a student organization for our first presentation. We will start small, show it to STEM students who already know the concepts, then go to younger and younger audiences until we reach our limit.

Built With

• english
• mint
• oak
• trebuchet