Nicholas Chiumento

My work experience is 2 years plus some small intervals at the same place Effort Woodcraft A cabinet shop June 11th, 2013 to August 14th, 2015 (Plus small intervals during breaks) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Pleasant Valley Highschool offered the ASVAB test issued by the Department of Defense. I scored 86 of 99, the national average (of the time), being 33 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Northampton Community College Trebuchet Project (Under Academic Achievement) Roughly in mid-September during my Physics course, my professor found in his mailbox from the Dean at the time a brochure and a note saying that the college will grant the Physics class money to participate in the "Last Fling Pumpkin Sling" contest, a form of a small scale Pumpkin Chunkin event only throwing 4 lb pumpkins. Once our professor told the class a select group of us jumped at the chance. We were told about 1 month in advance and given a budget of $250. The budget seemed like a lot until we subtracted the $50 entry fee, then got the cost of the lumber. Along with myself there were 5 other students who participated, plus the professor who only really supervised. After a week or so, I took lead on the project, none of us had any experience with Trebuchets or Catapults, and made the designs, presented them to the team who agreed with them. We decided on a simple Trebuchet, a medieval siege weapon powered by gravity. After that I oversaw the buying of materials and building of the device. Dealing with a small budget, I was left with the task of figuring out how to keep the costs low but still have the best device. Our problem was figuring out how to attach the weight, given we gathered up all the heavy objects we could. So we started with a simple bucket design to hold the weight set weights we had and attached to the arm with chains. I soon quickly realized it wouldn't be enough weight. Despite my friends not thinking it was going to add enough weight, I had them gather some flat rocks and a bucket of dirt. While I build a false bottom to the pre-existing bucket to hold the weights. Then filling the false bottom with as many rocks as possible and filling any voids with dirt, the top was attached. Once I finished attaching the top of the bucket, no one wanted to carry the bucket anymore, It took two people to move and lift it. We liked dirt and rocks because they were free. Moving on after innovating and coming up with clever ways to fix the problems as they arose. The device was finished on time, fully functional, and under budget. Our final total of roughly $182 (the remaining amount was returned to the school). Before the event the dean came back to us, and wanted us to be one of two teams at the event 2 days before to be on the local news. Along with us, the other team was a national record holder team of "Sir Chunksalot" having a record of throwing a 10lb pumpkin just shy of under half a mile (they were not competing at the event, just for fun and demonstration). That following Sunday was the day of the event, being the second of two days (only competing against the teams of the same day). Knowing our device only shot around the ballpark of 75 ft, the event allows 1 practice throw, and 3 throws and the best of the 3 is the mark. Our siege machines best throw that day was 87 ft. which is not much but exceeded our expectations. Though other different types of machines threw much further depending on the type and size. At the end of the event our machine was one of the only machines still fully functional, and did not break during the event. On top of durability and functionality, after the event we went out in the field and saw that our machine was also consistent with all our shots in almost a perfectly straight line (can be seen in photos). After all said and done our team on 1st Place in our Machine Class. *The helmet was given to us by one of our friends parents as a joke for the event, because the school mascot is the Spartans, I attached paintbrush heads to mine for the mohawk just for fun Article on School Website https://northampton.edu/news-archive/2014/october/flying-pumpkins.htm Video from News Station (only part of the actual clip, was recorded Live) http://wnep.com/2014/10/17/students-sling-pumpkins-at-tricky-triangle/