This document provides an assignment brief for designing a catapult. Students will work in teams of 4 to design and construct either a Roman catapult or trebuchet using only found materials. The catapult must propel a tennis ball to hit cardboard boxes placed 10 meters away, and will be judged on criteria that will be provided by lecturers. Students have until August 24th to complete their catapult design and construction in preparation for a competition at the Taylor's University sports center.

1. CTS30205 Assignment Brief 01
Assignment 01
“Command and Conquer!”
Topic explored: ASK
Introduction & brief
Yes! Just like the title of a hit PC game,
but it isn’t. What you will be commanding
is a machine and what you will conquer is
the challenge!
For this assignment, you will be designing
a catapult. What is it?
Quick history (extracted from:
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Inventio
nsC.htm
The catapult (also called the ballista) was
a major weapon of warfare for well over a
thousand years. Catapults could throw
stones weighing as much as 350 pounds
for distances greater than 300 feet.”
a roman catapult
What makes this
device interesting
is that it was
largely based on a
problem!
In medieval times, this device was the
answer to the problem of taking over a
castle and the need to bombard an area
from a large distance.
This required large siege weapons
consisting of huge catapults hurling huge
rocks and boulders to demolish the enemy
defenses.
As an answer to the problem, much
creative thoughts was put into the science
and design of the device to ensure
accuracy and distance as well as function.
The designers got creative due to the
need, which generated a number of
questions based on the need to achieve
the objectives.
Questions like:
How far? How big? How wide? How fast?
How strong? How accurate? And the
question could expand further increase the
chances of a more accurate solution.
CTS assignment 01 task:
You are to design and construct a roman
catapult or ‘trebuchet’ to propel a tennis
ball to bring down a ‘wall’. The wall will
consist of cardboard boxes. Distance from
catapult to the wall would be 10 metres.
The catapult must only be constructed
with found materials You must not
purchase any material.
No specific design schematic will be given
for this.
Work in teams of 4 for this assignment.
You will be competing with each other!
Criteria: to be briefed by your lecturers
Deadline: 24
th
August
Competition venue: Taylor’s Uni sports
centre
a trebuchet