Loads of events were organized by SAE BITS at APOGEE 2010, The Annual Technical Festival of BITS Pilani.
TREBUCHET
Trebuchet was one the popular events this APOGEE. Organised by the Society of Automotive Engineers, the event, organised in the institute lawn saw a participation of over 50 students from various colleges and top notch universities from all over India apart from the BITSians.
A trebuchet or trebucket (from the French: trébuchet) is a siege engine that was employed in the Middle Ages either to smash masonry walls or to lob projectiles over them and into the castle under siege. It is sometimes called a "counterweight trebuchet" or "counterpoise trebuchet" in order to distinguish it from an earlier weapon that has come to be called the "traction trebuchet", the original version with pulling men instead of a counterweight. Manpowered trebuchets appeared in the Greek world and China in about the 4th century BC.
An original trebuchetIt could fling up to three-hundred and fifty pound (140 kg) projectiles at high speeds into enemy fortifications. Occasionally, disease-infected corpses were flung into cities in an attempt to infect or terrorize the people under siege—a medieval form of biological warfare. The trebuchet did not become obsolete until the 16th century, well after the introduction of gunpowder. Trebuchets were far more accurate than other medieval catapults.
Nowadays, gamers relate a trebuchet to a weapon in the popular video game, Age of Empires.
The event was conducted in two parts:
(1)Quiz
(2)Designing a trebuchet
The quiz consisted of 20 general knowledge multiple choice questions and 11 teams (each consisting of upto 4 members) were shortlisted based on the same.
In the second round, each team was given a set of wooden planks alongwith rubber bands and an iron rod. Within the time limit of an hour and half given to make the trebuchet, the participants came up with brilliant ideas to make their own version of the medieval age weapon.
Then came the actual part of testing siege engine to test its maximum capacity by firing tennis balls. The maximum distance, acheived by Team Dopy from BITS Pilani, was 60ft. Team Front Wing and Team Rockers were the runners up of the event, who acheived a range of 55ft and 47ft respectively.
HOT AIR BALLONING
The basic aim of this event was to help the participants understand the manucfacturing procedure and science involved in hot air balloons. Hot air balloons are constructed of panels of a material. The number of panels determines the shape of the balloon. Hot air balloons air designed to have maximum the volume and also as light as possible.
The winning design incorporated all the requirements of a standard hot air balloon, only scaled down to quite an extent. It used four panels, which were the largest in size and hence ensured maximum volume. Acopper ring secured to the balloon and used as a means to tie the fuel. The fuel consisted of six small candles joined together. The winning ballon thus had the maximum volume, the least weight and cleanest design.
AIR SHOW
The Air Show organized by SAE ,BITS Pilani on 14th March 2010 was the show stealer of Apogee .The show was a demonstration of radio controlled airplanes by professionals who came all the way from Nagpur. The event witnessed a massive turnout and the jaw dropping moves by the RC devils in the sky got everybody off their feet.The best of them all was a RC flying saucer which could do a 360 in mid air and a lot of other eye catching maneuvers.After this came in the helicopters which could get closer the crowd.Performances like flower dropping, banner towing and other RC advanced aerobatics were performed.To end this magnificent show, there was a areal combat between two RC planes.All in all it was indeed a exiting and educational experience.