Competition Day

The theoretical range of our trebuchet was calculated to be 469.65 m. I believe that it didn't reach it's full potential due to these five factors:

1. Counterweight - The more weight used as a counterweight, the further the projectile will travel. The amount of weight we were able to use in our counterweight was limited to as much as we could fit in our bucket (3 chains). 
2. Air Resistance - The air resistance on competition day was pretty fierce, blowing from the north-east at over 20 km/h. This affected the path of the tennis ball while it was in the air, especially when the flight of your tennis ball is very steep. The higher the projectile is, the more it is affected by the wind.
3. Friction - Friction is a major factor in the range of the tennis ball, if there is a lot of friction between the arm and the axel, counterweight and the arm, etc. there is a greater chance that the ball will not travel it's full distance. 
4. Height of Counterweight - the further the counterweight has to fall, the longer gravity has to act on it, and the longer gravity has to act on it, the further the ball will be thrown. 
5. Length of Arm - The length of the arm is crucial to the range of the trebuchet, if the arm is too long, it will not throw correctly. If it is too short, it won't throw as far as possible. 

For our distance portion of competition day, we had 5 throws in 20 minutes and here they are as follows: 

1. 24.1 m
2. 25.3 m
3. 25.8 m
4. 30.5 m
5. 32 m

That turns out to be 27.5 m on average. 

For our accuracy component of the competition we are planning to leave the trigger how it is and just changing the weight of our counterweight to get as close to the target as possible.