When Aaron Blata graduates from engineering school he says he’d like to make a career of retrofitting old buildings.

“Either that or demolishing them,” said the Civil and Environmental engineering student.

His destructive streak might easily be explained by the fact that he spent about 100 hours this semester building a model of an ancient device used by medieval warriors to smash the walls of fortified cities during long sieges.

Along with partners David Basilious, Matt Lapain and Joe Mancini, Blata was part of a group of second year engineering students from associate professor Bill Altenhof’s dynamics course who took part in a design contest in which they were required to build a working catapult out of nothing more than popsicle sticks, glue and string.

About 185 students broke up into teams of three or four each to work together on their projects. They were given specific parameters they had to work within: the catapult’s base could be no more than 55x65 centimetres and its height had to be no more than 130 centimeters. The entire machine could weigh no more than 2.5 kilograms and they had to use three pop cans as a counterweight to launch their projectile.

On Friday the students went to the St. Denis Centre field house to demonstrate the project to their teachers. Within four minutes, they had to launch a 25 gram squash ball at targets on the floor at distances of one, two and three metres, as well as to their maximum distance. Prior to launching their projectiles, their projects were graded to make sure they met specifications. The project counted for 20 per cent of their final mark.

Blata estimated each member of his team put 100 hours of work into the project and besides the obvious design lessons they learned, it taught them a great deal about leadership and team work. And that’s exactly what Dr. Altenhof was hoping for.

“This is the way engineering is,” he said, adding that many students had to pair up with people they didn’t know. “You don’t always get to work with your brother or your best friend.”

All of the students on Blata’s team said the project was a valuable learning experience and they learned a lot about each other. All of them plan on pursuing professional careers, but Basilious said he hopes to work on designing new buildings.

“When Aaron blows them up, I can build them back up later on,” he quipped.