AP Physics Water Balloon Launcher Lab

Colleges and Universities A-Z California Institute of Technology
1

<p>This doesn't have a lot to do with Caltech, but this is my favorite forum on the CC talk boards, so I figured I'd share this with like-minded peers. The best lab we have all year in our AP / IB SL Physics class is one where we build a water balloon launcher and attempt to hit our teacher at a distance between 30 and 70 meters. My group has built our launcher. It's insanely accurate thanks to a launcher system we designed, although we are still learning how to aim it (moving it back and forth a few cm makes a huge difference 70m out). As for distance / power we have shot it over 100 meters (probably around 110, 115, but I am estimating here)... it is a blast to shoot. </p>

<p>Without further ado,
The original photo: <a href="http://mygwl.com/%7Elizzardfire/launch2.jpg%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://mygwl.com/~lizzardfire/launch2.jpg&lt;/a>
A dressed up version that I have as my computer desktop: <a href="http://mygwl.com/%7Elizzardfire/launch.jpg%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://mygwl.com/~lizzardfire/launch.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Enoy :D</p>

2

<p>Last year, two of my friends built a giant trebuchet for a physics project. It was about 2m high, had a throwing arm of around 4.5m long, and used an 80kg counterweight. I don't think they got much more than 60m with a water balloon, but then again they used really big water balloons.</p>