Commended on TAKS

Here in Texas, state test examinations are given to high school students called TAKS which determine if students would move onward to the next grade level. As for me, it would mean my last TAKS test if I passed it.

News had swarmed into the school building about how TAKS scores have finally arrived. Only one thing came into my mind, if I was commended on them meaning I mastered the topic. I didn’t necessarily worry whether or not I would pass as the TAKS test was not that difficult. I just wanted my scores to be very, very high.

As the day passed, only anxiety grew. With my seventh period teacher holding the scores, he slowing came towards each student to show them their grades on the TAKS test. Finally my turn had arrived. As my teacher addressed me, he pointed to where my name was, highlighted in bright yellow. As I read across each column, my row contained nothing but YES’s. This meant that I was commended on every subject: English, Math, Science, and US History. While listening onto other grades that did not get commended, I felt smart and fulfilled with a sense of achievement.

I had been commended on my last TAKS test. I had become filled with relief and joy!

Catapult: Trebuchet Treachery -Final Day

At last, the time has come to fully complete the trebuchet. With the attachment of the arm and the sling ready to go, it was finally finished.

For our sling, we used two strongly twisted rope and a pouch to hold the softball. We cut two small holes into the pouch, one on the right and the other on the left side. Next, we tied a knot of rope through the hole to connect both the pouch and sling. We did it again for the other hole but this time it was attached to a hook which was nailed into the arm. Then we made a small square hook to slip it through the cut at the top of the arm. This allows the pouch to stay in place until enough energy is produced to release the hook. With that done, our sling was complete!

We tested the sling out using manpower instead of weights as we were getting tired. Three, two, one, launch! Swoosh! The sling came in a complete arc and released the ball at the very top of its trajectory. The ball went flying over my roof (which was about 10 feet high) until it hit the tree behind it. My friends and I jumped and yelled with enthusiasm. Finally, we have finished. After four days of man labor and conflict, our machine was completer Our trebuchet was finished.

Later on this week, we will be filming our test launches from our trebuchet. Stay tuned and there’ll be a video post of our trebuchet in action. Fingers crossed that this machine launches the softball 100 feet. X

Catapult: Trebuchet Treachery -Day 3

Day three has arrived on working on this project. Now it was time to build the machine!

First we started on our base which would look like a rectangle with a piece of wood going in the middle like this: [|]. So, using a power drill, we made holes to where we would put our screws in. Once that was done, we went ahead and put in our screws. There was only one problem when we were putting the screws in, the wood began to split open! Obviously, the screw was way too thick for the wood which made us drown in misery. So we stopped using the thick screws and went scrounging around my shed to find thinner nails. After half an hour wasted in digging for random screws, we finally found a few. At that point, we just felt lucky. So we continued in screwing in the base which turned out pretty sturdy.

Now it was time to make our verticals which looked something and upside down Y. Since the blocks were rectangular, we had to cut some wood off to make it level with the board and ground to make it triangular. This only took a few minutes but during the process, I almost sawed off one of my friends finger since the wood jerked. Without doubt he got furious and started scorning me. With the cuts made, nailing the pieces in went quick and simple.

So with all the verticals put together with the base, it was time to drills some holes to fit a bar in between the verticals which would be our axis of rotation for the arm. This proved difficult. With a limit to our tools, our drills didn’t make big enough holes. So instead, we drilled multiple holes to make the circle bigger. This took the most time of all as we spend about two hours trying to make the perfect hole for the bar. It was successful, but nevertheless was painstakingly long.

It was almost 8:30 P.M. so we decided to call it a day. Next step, make the arm and sling!

Catapult: Trebuchet Treachery -Day 2

With out prototype finished, my two friends and I went to Home Depot to buy some wood. As we walked throughout the store, all the wood looked fantastic, a little bit too fantastic. We were beginning to wonder if we were getting ahead of ourselves and wonder if we could really pull this trebuchet off. Nonetheless, we were already far into our project and was too late to turn back.

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When we were picking out wood, the wood looked even bigger than we had planned. At that moment, we realized this trebuchet was really, really going to be huge. So were bought fifty dollars worth of various wood and headed out to checkout. With three teenagers full of wood, the look was just suspicious. We received many questions from adults on what we were building. We couldn’t help but laugh a little and told them we were building a trebuchet for our project. Now it was time to go home.

Stacking the wood in my backyard, we began to cut the wood using a table saw. This was the first time I had ever used one and my friends were nervous at the whole cutting procedure. Everything went according to plan until we realized our prototype design was too complicated. The base of our trebuchet was going to be triangular but then we decided to make a square base to simplify the matter. After three hours of thinking and cutting, it was time to call it a day before the mosquitoes came out.

Next step, put the trebuchet together!