At the downtown Rapid City Pumpkin Festival, the leaves may be falling, but the pumpkins are flying.
One of the benefits of sharing a community with an elite engineering school like South Dakota Mines is the chance to see applied physics. This weekend, that took the form of a pumpkin chunkin’ contest with full-sized trebuchets.
Clubs from across campus, and nearby Douglas High School, built trebuchets by hand and are ready to fire. For those unfamiliar, a trebuchet is a type of siege weapon used in the Middle Ages. It's sort of like a catapult, but it relies entirely on gravity.
Clubs like Rocker Robotics, Steel Bridge, and Mines racing team Baja-SAE are competing for prizes in front of hundreds of local families.
Caden Caylor a senior is a member of Steel Bridge, a team made up primarily of soon-to-be civil engineers. He said the process from blueprint to seeing the machine in action is rewarding.
"We put a lot of work into our new trebuchet hoping it would work, did a lot of test throws to make sure it was accurate," Caylor said. "It was really nice to see it almost hit the 50 (foot marker), almost hit the 100 (foot marker), so we’re really excited for today.”
Trebuchets in competition are judged over three rounds on accuracy, the ability to hit specific targets, and total distance at full power.
Nya Halley is a junior civil engineering major. She explained the function of the machine.
“It’s a basic, counterweight trebuchet," Halley said. "So, we put our load steel in the basket and cock the arm at about a 45-degree angle and release it. The potential energy created by raising the basket turns into kinetic energy and creates momentum for the sling to rise up and release, and hopefully go pretty far.”
South Dakota Mines is getting creative in its efforts to get more people interested in STEM careers.
STEM, or science, technology, engineering and mathematics, are desirable, generally high-paying career paths in need of new students.
However, many of those students fall into a specific camp – young men. Despite many efforts to get young women into STEM fields, the South Dakota School of Mines still boasts a near 5-to-1 male to female ratio.
Halley said researching STEM is a great opportunity to meet likeminded friends.
“Coming to Mines, it can be a little intimidating, but one thing I’ve noticed is that the girls on campus are really, really close," Halley said. "I love to see young women coming into our club.”
Halley says she’d like to see that ratio even out, but it won’t change without supporting women in STEM.
“Basically, since I was in elementary school I said I was going to be an engineer," Halley said. "Don’t be afraid. Don’t be intimidated. You are absolutely just as capable as everyone else to do it, and you’re your worst enemy.”
South Dakota Mines also offers the WiSE, or Women in Science and Engineering Center, which helps connect students with scholarship and career opportunities, as well as with one another.