The SUPER SLINGSHOT
Francesca Mancillas and I constructed a slingshot to hurtle a golf ball at least 5 meters. We had around two weeks to do so and this is what the final project looks like! The slingshot has two different types of supports so it doesn't fall over, the bottom two pieces to stabilize the bottom and the two top pieces to stabilize the top and back of the slingshot. The slingshot is made out of wood and the sling is surgical tubing then we painted a metallic paint over it to make it look good. The way it works is that you pull back on the sling with your foot down on the bottom support for extra stability then you release your hand and the projectile flies towards its target.
Concepts
The golfball has a mass of 0.459kg
- The Distance from the slingshot to the target was 5.69 meters
- The golfball took 0.6 seconds to pass the 5.69 meters
- The velocity of the golfball [v=d/t], the velocity is 9.48m/s
- The acceleration on the golfball was 15.8m/s^2
- The force pushed on the target as the golfball hit the target was 7.26 Joules
- We also found the kinetic energy to be 20.639 Joules
- Potential energy is equal to Kinetic energy, which makes the potential energy 20.639 Joules
- The golfballs work during the project was 41.309 Joules
Reflection
I think that over all the time we had about half the time we procrastinated thinking of ideas on what to do and how. We thought of having a huge catapult that launched fruit but with the skills we have we only managed to build a slingshot. What I could have improved on was to build blueprints first and to think less about things that are out of our skill level. However I learned that I can improvise well and how to use projectile motion to launch a golfball other than hitting it with a club