How Did The Catapult Launch The Marshmallow

The reason this experiment got those results is because of the way the catapult launched the marshmallow. The energy transferred from user to the ruler than the marshmallow is called kinetic energy. The meaning of kinetic energy is “energy which a body possesses by virtue of being in motion.” While when the marshmallow was stationary it had potential energy. The user transferred energy to the catapult then to the marshmallow which travelled across the room. Each launch the marshmallow was given a different amount of energy by the user. Even though this experiment used rubber bands they weren't used to help the launch marshmallow but keep it together. So that meant there was no elastic potential energy involved which could've insisted in this

experiment. The first time the marshmallow and catapult didn't get much energy because the catapult was hit lightly so the energy from the user wasn't strong enough to launch the marshmallow far. This was because the catapult broke before the experiment so the user didn't want it to break again and decided to hit the catapult lightly.

This resulted in less energy getting transferred to the marshmallow and didn't make it travel a great distance. The second time the user gave the catapult a lot of energy because they hit it harder, so the marshmallow went further. The energy was just the right consistently not too hard so it would go up in the air but the gravitational potential energy pull it back down and not too soft so the kinetic didn't run out after a short distance. Gravitational Potential energy is energy stored because of its location above the ground. While in the last launch the user hit the catapult too hard and quick so instead of launching the marshmallow far, it went upwards wasting the kinetic energy going upwards. Marshmallow was launched up instead of across the room. The gravitational potential energy pushed the marshmallow towards the ground instead of across. The stored potential energy the marshmallow possess turned to kinetic energy and the force of gravity made the marshmallow’s kinetic energy stop shortly then it was pushed back to the

ground. So the marshmallow only travelled 4.72 meters instead of the kinetic energy being used to travel across the room. The energy was wasted in going up and the energy wasn't efficient for the task it was required of.

This experiment does and doesn't supports the hypothesis because when too much kinetic energy is transferred to marshmallow it launches upwards but the gravitational potential energy stops it from travelling far away from the table. When there isn't enough kinetic energy the marshmallow will run out of kinetic energy before it can travel very far and the gravity will bring it back to the ground. So to make the hypothesis correct there needs to be just the right amount of energy. Different amounts of kinetic energy do depend on the mass of the object and the speed the object is travelling. When the catapult launched the marshmallow towards the wall and not upwards the marshmallow it would travel further. So the hypothesis did confirm that the marshmallow would travel further if it travelled towards the wall and not upwards. This was because when the marshmallow travelled upwards it wasted the kinetic energy going up. So if the marshmallow is directed towards the wall the energy

This experiment didn't display any pattern or trends in the data.

This was because there was no set spot where the marshmallow landed because of the way the catapult was built. If the marshmallow landed all in the same area the catapult would be called consistent but the catapult didn't so it was unpredictable. The distance the marshmallow landed away from the table depended on the way the user transfer the energy to the catapult. Too hard and the marshmallow would be launched up, too soft and it will run out of energy early but just the right amount resulted in the marshmallow travelling far. If the launches were done more than 3 times a pattern might have been uncovered or it could still mean the catapult launches the marshmallow in unpredictable patterns. This means the experiment wasn't reliable because the data didn't have a clear pattern. Without getting a clear pattern a reliable conclusion can't be made. If there were more launches instead of 3 there is a possibility a pattern could have been made. With only 3 launches done we cannot get a pattern and a reliable experiment and probably even if there was more than 3 there still wouldn't have been a pattern uncovered. The only reliable thing that can be dissected from this experiment is that the catapult didn't launch the marshmallow in a particular area. In every launch, the marshmallow landed in a different area in the room, not a consistent

area.

Evaluation

What was fair about this experiment was the catapult was tested multiple times to get the best result. This was fair because launching the marshmallow more than once gave a clear understanding of where the marshmallow would end up. From the experiment, it is easy to understand that this catapult design was unpredictable. It didn't have a set pattern where it ended. So if the catapult was only tested once the data wouldn't have been as accurate as when the test was repeated. Another fair variable was in the facility where the experiment was taking place there was no wind. This made the experiment fair because if there had been any wind the marshmallow could have travelled further or the opposite making the test unreliable. The walls of the building stopped any wind currents from affecting the distance the marshmallow travelled. The distance the marshmallow travelled wasn't measured in the energy the wind gave it but purely on the catapult and the method the user used to transfer the energy. During each experiment, the catapult design wasn't modified, just the amount of energy that was transferred into launching the marshmallow. This was fair because in each launch nothing was changed to the design which could've affected the performance of the catapult. If the design was changed it wouldn't have been a fair test because the energy might've been transferred through a different way.

In this experiment what was unfair was that before the experiment the catapult snapped into 4 different places. This wasn't fair because it reduced the chance of launching the marshmallow far. This impacted the experiment because this made the structure weak and the way the energy was transferred was through momentum and speed. So when the structure broke and was fixed with tape it changed the design and the way it functioned. What else was unfair was during the second marshmallow launch the marshmallow hit the wall so we didn't get the full distance as this obstacle was blocking its path. There was another launch in an open field to discover how far the marshmallow would've gone. Unfortunately, the catapult broke during that launch because of the pressure it encountered during the previous launches. So if there wasn't a wall the marshmallow would've gone further than what the results show making the experiment fairer.

To improve the experiment there should have been a second ruler in case the first broke. When the catapult was being tested before the results were recorded, the ruler snapped under the pressure. The ruler helped transfer the energy from the hand’s impact to the marshmallow, so when it snapped it affected the results. There wasn't another ruler inside the pencil case so no replacement could be found. The design had to be modified by using more tape to fix the broken ruler, making the catapult usable. If the ruler wasn't broken the marshmallow could've launched further than what the results show, making the results fairer than what they were. Something else that could've improved the experiment would be doing more test launches because the result from this experiment didn't have a clear pattern. So if there were more launches a clear pattern could've been uncovered even though there were 3 launches.

In conclusion, this experiment didn't get a clear pattern in the data which made it unreliable. The first launch was the shortest of 1.47meters because there wasn't enough kinetic energy to project the marshmallow very far. The second was the longest of 13.7 meters because there was just the right amount of kinetic energy and it was directed towards the wall. While the last wasn't as far because even though there was a lot of kinetic energy it was directed upwards so it didn't land far away.