BC Wood WORKS!/Canadian Wood Council annually host the Western Canadian Wood Catapult Competition on the UBC Campus in Vancouver BC. The third annual Wood Catapult Competition will take place at the UBC Campus in Vancouver on March 28th, 2009.
The purpose of the competition is to challenge registered college or university students to design and build a wood siege engine capable of accurately hitting targets at 20, 30 and 45 meters using a cement ball. Teams consisting of students and one faculty member submit a short report prior to the competition about their catapult design. On the morning of the competition each team will be required to give a fifteen-minute presentation to the judges, after their weigh-in and setup.
For information on the registering for this competition and technical requirements, go to the
BC Wood WORKS! Competitions website.
Background Reading
Denny, Mark. Siege engine dynamics. European Journal of Physics. 2005. 26 561-577.
Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Materials Engineering, Physics and Astronomy