Acme Catapults, Inc.
Research and Development
Students in Statistics designed and conducted randomized controlled experiments to determine favorable design characteristics for Acme's new "Bearapult," a gummi-bear-launching catapult.
Lots of teams, lots of fun. Somehow the ceiling and light fixtures interfered (notice the red gummi bear in the southeast light fixture in the chemistry lab!). It was all VERY SERIOUS.
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December 2002:
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At the left, Team R
randomizes gummi bears before decapitating them. The team is trying
to decide whether gummis without heads travel farther than gummis with
heads. You don't want to know what they did with the heads.
Below left is Team R's lab, and below right you see the result of a decapitated gummi bear launch. Team R concluded that decapitated gummis fly further!
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| Team S, at the right, is testing
whether the position of the gummi bear on the catapult at launch affects
distance traveled. ~~Gummi decapitation was an issue for one of the team members.~~
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Team S, in their laboratory. |
| Team J was interested in whether gummi orientation on the launcher affected how straight the launch was. The measured effect was the calculated angle, using the arctangent of the gummi's perpendicular distance from the center line divided by the distance along the center line. |  |
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