On November 16th, thirty-some Senior students ventured to the back lawn of CHS to see how far they could, through contortions and contraptions of their own, fire a ping pong ball. The launchers couldn’t be slingshots, but the designs were otherwise only limited by the student’s imaginations.

Ranging from designs based around vacuum cleaners to bike wheels, from Ballistas to Trebuchets, the ideas were all certainly unique, although some worked better than others.

The launchers were a demonstration for a unit on projectile motion, an interactive and fun way for the students to learn about projectiles through experimentation.

The students have had a few weeks to perfect their designs, and many groups had extremely varying ideas, based on what materials they had available and how they decorated them. The winning designs from each class were very different, with unique catapult innovations from a variety of sources.

In second block, the winner, named “Tetanus Deck”, was a catapult made of wood which utilised an extremely tightly wound cotton cord to put a tremendous force on the ball. In sixth block, however, the winning team, dubbed “Durrrty Souf”, used a vacuum to suck a wooden dowel through a tube, which hit the ball, propelling it outward.

The day was concluded with a final launch of the three winning teams with golf balls, flying further and faster than the ping pong balls due to more mass.

Courtney Kiley, the physics teacher, said that the catapults have improved this year compared to last year’s physics class.  “Definitely more innovative,” she said.