What is it?

• A team of engineers will create a siege engine (a catapult) to attack a “castle”.
• Age limit is 15.
• Each team will consist of no less than 2 and no more than 5 people.
• Construction will be completed on site on the day of the contest and design and build time will be limited to 45 minutes.
• Each team will be given a kit of K’NEX pieces containing building parts.
• The device your team constructs will be used to launch a boulder into a castle.
• The engine must conform to the constraints given below to qualify for the competition.

Where and when is it?

• UK Center for Manufacturing (RMB) Room 209 on the UK Campus.
• Saturday, February 24th during the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Winners will be announced at 1:00 p.m. (winners need not be present).

Prizes

• 1st Place (highest score) will receive a $25 dollar gift certificate
• 2nd Place will receive a $15 dollar gift certificate
• 3rd Place will receive a $10 dollar gift certificate

Materials Furnished

• Bag including K’NEX pieces.
• 10 rubber bands (max)
• 1 ping pong ball (shot)
• Target castle consisting of a Styrofoam pieces with a total footprint area of approximately 28 cm high x 28 cm wide x 56 cm deep.

Rules:

• Absolutely no modifications or additions to the K’NEX pieces are permitted.
• The distance from the front-most part of the siege engine to the front of the target will be 2.00 meters.
• Engines must be designed so that they can be armed and fired using one hand.
• The teams will have 3 attempts to hit the target.
• All teams will be given practice attempts to adjust their designs before the 3 scoring attempts begin.

Scoring

• Each team will receive 25 points for successfully hitting any part of the castle
• 75 points per attempt if the “boulder” (ping pong ball) strikes the castle without touching the ground first.
• 100 points per attempt for landing the “boulder” in the middle courtyard area of the castle

In addition to the points mentioned above, each team will be charged for construction of their engine at the following weights:

• 0.25 points per gram of raw building materials (total mass of K’NEX ~ 440 g)
• 10 points per rubber band.
• 10 points per 100 (cm^2) of footprint area (footprint areas will be measured with the engine in the armed position, and are considered to be the product of maximum width and length of the catapult base and any attached components).

• equation: SCORE = A – B
• where:
• A = Points received for striking the wall
• B = Construction Points

Note: Construction points will be taken away from the team’s overall score.

• The team with the highest SCORE is the winner.
• If there is a tie, the team with the lighter siege engine will win.
• For example score sheet click here

Sponsored by the student section of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers