Five teams from the AP Physics I and II classes competed at a catapult contest hosted by the Don Harrington Discovery Center May 11.

Two teams brought back trophies. Juniors Ismael Granda, Caleb Ebell, Bennett Bonanno and Little Bull Castro won the fiercest fighter award, which was given to the team with the best overall performance. Juniors Zane Crabtree, Tyler Briney and Tristen Hefner won the best design trophy for the team with the most original catapult. Juniors Jessica Heckman, Mallory Shehan, Sophie Shelton and Mariah Thornton earned third place in overall points.

Students competed in two events, distance and accuracy. In the accuracy round, students were asked to hit a 4’x4’ square target 40 feet away which was resting at a 45 degree angle. The rings on the target had different point values, with the center being worth 150 points. The second part was the distance portion. Students were lined up and instructed to shoot their tennis ball as far as possible.

Students earned points for how far the catapult shot and for what part of the target was hit. Catapults created out of recycled materials earned bonus points. Crabtree said his team spent a lot of extra time building their catapult entirely out of old car parts and was upset when teams who had just used wood were awarded the bonus points for using recyclables.

“I think the competition was run fairly,” Crabtree said.  “They had plenty of staff watching to make sure no one was cheating. However, we built our catapult entirely out of recycled materials to gain 50 extra bonus points out of everyone else. Whenever we got here though, they were giving that bonus to everyone, even if they didn’t have a valid reason for it.”

Although a majority of the catapults operated the way they were supposed to on the range, some did not perform the same way they did when tested.  Junior Coby Vigil said he was confident going into the competition but was disappointed when he left.

“We got out here and took our test shot and I thought maybe it was just a minor error,” Vigil said. “We fired our three distance shots afterwards and only got 43 feet which was disappointing. At the target round, we only got half way to the target which again was pretty disappointing. Overall, it was a disappointment and a failure for us as a team.”

Granda, Ebell, Bonanno and Castro won the award because their catapult proved to have the best performance out of any in the high school age division.

“We put a lot of work into it,” Granda said. “We spent probably three days straight trying to get it to work. We were really proud of how it performed because it broke during the actual competition and we had to make repairs on the fly. None of this would have been possible without Mrs. Sloan.”