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WSU To Host Trebuchet Competition For High School Teams To Engage In Medieval Battles While Learning Engineering

High school students will develop and execute battle plans to destroy the enemy at the Fourth Annual Trebuchet Contest at Wright State University on Friday, Feb 27.

The trebuchet is a medieval device for hurling projectiles, and over 30 teams and 200 students from Dayton and Southwest Ohio will compete by tossing squash balls at least 35 feet in the air at the enemy team. The winning team will be the trebuchet army that hits the most enemy flags or eliminates all the other teams.

The event, run by members of the College of Engineering and Computer Science and the College of Science and Mathematics, with volunteers from the Society of Women Engineers and the Wright Engineering Council, with sponsorship from the Ohio Space Grant Consortium and the Department of Electrical Engineering, will be held in the Nutter Center from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The public is invited to attend.

Joseph Slater, Ph.D., an associate professor of mechanical and materials engineering, is coordinator of the event.

“This is an educational program with the excitement of a sporting event,” he explained, “because the students must research the history and physics involved in a trebuchet to develop an engineering design that is effective, efficient and reliable at a low cost. There is the excitement of a sporting event as the fortunes of each team rise and fall with each shot. Students gain an understanding of the engineering design process as they begin with research and develop a product through to its final usage, all while having an exhilarating time,” Slater said.

For more details, go to the Web site http://www.engineering.wright.edu/trebuchet or contact Slater at (937) 775-5085 or joseph.slater@wright.edu.

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