3D Printed: Engineering Catapult

 

Challenge: To create a unique piece of solve a problem

Background: As part of our students ongoing engineering efforts during our afternoon rotations one of the tasks involves them having to construct a catapult from a variety of items and for the catapult to be able to launch the pom pom one metre.

As part of the construction process the items are put together already supplied however the intention was to use the 3D Printer to customise the process, in this instance the launch for the location of the catapult.

The positives that the students were able to produce the individual parts using Tinkercad and create a very small scale 3D print which was possible to print in around half of an hour.

The students in the classroom were working in pairs and therefore shared the design tasks.

Level of Difficulty: Low.   This is simply a basic shape designed by a student to complete a very standard task.  However as the size of the different launchers varied then there is expected to be some variation in the launch length.   Further research will be completed into this. 

It also allowed students who had not had the opportunity to complete a quick, low key design to do so and be successful in doing so.

An example of the bucket is shown left, an easy two piece design, created by students extremely quickly.  It allowed for time for the student to simply check that the size was correct before they started to get completed and print the process.

This design (shown left) was 50mm across and 20mm high, which requires testing to ensure that it is not too heavy for the working of the catapult, but can also be used as a test item against a regular bottle top.