Windham High Students Go Medieval

Nearly 150 Windham High School students participated in a trebuchet contest on Oct. 28, launching water balloons in the name of science.

Students headed out to the unexpectedly snow-filled athletic fields decked out in Medieval garb, bringing their hand-crafted wooden catapults with them. According to physics teacher Patrick Kaplo, the 53 teams involved have been working for four weeks to prepare for the event. He said that when he's done it in the past at other schools, the project has been a good community builder.

"It's as much about kind of building the school community culture as it is doing physics," said Kaplo. "It becomes this thing that you do when you're here. It kind of connects different levels of kids doing physics as well as different generations of kids."

Kaplo spent a good portion of the morning in the center of a circle of catapults, shouting instructions through a megaphone to the kids participating. During the launch periods, students catapulted water balloons toward a center castle. Depending on what area of the middle target the balloon reached would be that team's grade.

The overnight snow covered up many of the plotted lines. Kaplo said that he has never done the project under such unique weather conditions.

"That's like two hours to paint the field, then you come out and you can't see anything," said Kaplo.

WHS Physics teacher Curtiss Rude was decked out in what he called his "Friar Tuck" costume, the famous companion to Robin Hood. Students who dressed up for the day received extra credit on their final grades.

He also had a white shield filled with equations. During the launches, Rude was sitting in the center of the trebuchet circle and didn't want to get directly hit by any water balloons.

Rude explained the launch process and the grading scheme.

"They use the force of weight-dropping to launch balloons," said Rude. "Their idea is to try to hit us. The closer they get to us the more points they get."

Rude said that the math department was collecting the trajectory data during the launches, which they will later analyze along with the science department.