Trasformazioni energetiche nella catapulta romana (Scuola media statale “F. B. Busoni”, Empoli FI)

This article describes an entry to the Bonacini Annual Contest for experimental work in the school. The pupils built a model of an ancient roman catapult and measured its elastic constant and the projectile’s initial velocity. At the end the efficiency of the energy transfer was evaluated from the energy balance of the machine.