By Nancy K. Crevier

Inspired by the trebuchet his father had built for a Newtown Middle School experiment and by a toy catapult that he had built at a Boy Scout convention, 11-year-old Alex Michaud decided earlier this spring to that he could build something on a larger scale than the Boy Scout miniature he had made.

A trebuchet, historically the creation for Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo Da Vinci, uses a leverage to propel a projectile. This past November, Alex's father, NMS educational assistant Mark Michaud, and technology education instructor Don Ramsey demonstrated for staff and students the ability of a trebuchet, incorrectly referred to at times as a catapult, which swings off the ground, to propel a projectile across the middle school grounds when proper math and science is applied to the construction of the instrument.

Mr Michaud drew up his own plans for a trebuchet with his father, Ray Michaud, and built the giant slingshot on his property before transporting it to the school last fall for some big-time pumpkin chucking.

It was while his father constructed the trebuchet that Alex got some first-hand experience and inspiration for what would become his spring 2009 St Rose science fair entry.

With the help of his father and grandfather, Alex built a catapult of scrap wood, a giant screw for the fulcrum, and an approximately three-foot-long throwing arm, one-third of which falls below the fulcrum, and the rest extending above the fulcrum. Wooden feet balance the structure and prevent it from falling over as it flings a golf ball from the cup at the top of the arm.

"The short end evens out the mass and gives more ..." hesitated Alex in a recent interview, with his mother, Katherine providing the lost term, "Leverage."

"Yeah, leverage to throw the ball," said Alex.

Alex said that he and his father and grandfather did several experiments one afternoon to determine the best counterweights and weight for the optimum throw. He decided that for the optimum throw, the counterweight would need to be at least five times that of the object tossed. They settled on metal lifting discs weighing about ten pounds for the counterweight below the fulcrum, hoping to prove his hypothesis that heavier weights projected from the cup would go further than lighter weights.

"I was kind of surprised that the lighter weights went further," said Alex, adding that he had thought that air pressure against the weight as it was ejected would slow down a lighter weight. "So I sort of disproved my hypothesis," he said with a shrug.

Alex, a fifth grader who studies science with Ms Reilly at St Rose School, said that building the catapult was a way to combine his love of building, history — especially medieval history — science, and "things that go boom!" into one project.

He did not take a prize at the science fair, but he had a lot of fun making it and learning from his dad and grandfather, said Alex.

The catapult is back at home now, following the school's science fair, but Alex is still having fun flinging things across the yard. For the long term, though, Alex may donate his catapult to Mr Ramsey's class, or to the Cub Scouts.