Stevens ASME Club Catapults to Second Straight Victory at Intercollegiate Trebuchet Competition

Nearly a dozen students from Stevens Institute of Technology’s American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Club hurled themselves to success on May 2, 2025, defeating Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU) in the second-annual intercollegiate trebuchet competition at FDU’s Teaneck, N.J., campus.

The Stevens ASME club members watch the launch of their catapult to a second-place victory.

First used roughly 3,000 years ago in ancient China, a trebuchet is a catapult that swings a long arm to launch an object from a sling using only a counterweight and gravity. In the Middle Ages, trebuchets were used in wartime for smashing castle walls and throwing fireballs and other projectiles. Today, they’re primarily found in more amiable battles, such as STEM competitions and maker projects that challenge students to blend physics and mechanics to deliver dramatic launches.

The ASME Club trebuchet competition pitted Stevens against FDU to see whose trebuchet could fling a volleyball further. The Stevens team defended its 2024 title with a 180-foot launch distance and the highest score across four rounds — earning a second consecutive win and solidifying this emerging springtime engineering tradition.

“It started as a friendly challenge,” said Zahra Pournorouz, teaching assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and ASME Club advisor. “Now our students look forward to it. The workload is no joke, and they’re doing all of it without any course credit or grade incentives. It’s completely driven by their own curiosity and passion for engineering.”

Bringing theory to life with engineering expertise and creative collaboration

From fall semester design sprints to spring testing marathons, the Stevens team of mechanical engineering students — spanning first- to fourth-year levels and spearheaded by project leader Noah Golan, Class of 2027 — treated the volunteer build like a professional engineering project.

And though most of the participants had known nothing about trebuchets when they joined, they all got involved in every aspect of the design and construction processes. In a scenario where one slight change in release angle or sling length could affect the launch distance by more than 50 feet, every detail mattered.

Adrien Susino, Class of 2027, floated the idea for a floating arm.

“A typical trebuchet pivots along a shaft and creates angular momentum in the arm, causing the ball to launch significant distances,” Sustino explained. “Our floating arm design leverages gravitational potential energy for a greater initial velocity. Its predictable, consistent motion was important in winning this competition.”

The team’s collective academic experiences were put to the test with a host of challenges ranging from precisely designing the rails along which the floating arm moved to firmly sticking to the 200-pound maximum build weight.

“We ended up eight pounds over the limit one day before competition,” Golan recalled. “The entire team came together to cut down as much as possible, reaching exactly 200 pounds — a very memorable sight looking at the scale!”

Engineering teamwork in action

Beyond the build, the project was a showcase of inspired teamwork and leadership. Soon-to-be graduates brought their collected learnings and insights about higher-level areas such as calculations and stress analysis, and first-year students shared their still-fresh book knowledge of concepts in physics. 

The students soaked up mentorship from faculty including Yong Shi, associate mechanical engineering professor; infrastructure support from Paul McClelland, MakerSpace director; and backing from Souran Manoochehri, professor and chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. But they stayed as independent as possible, attacking each hurdle with determination and agility.

“You’d see first-year students standing shoulder-to-shoulder with fourth-year students, learning how to drill, troubleshoot and calculate launch angles together,” said Pournorouz. “When the whole team pushed the button at once for a solid launch, that was more than a win. It’s a moment of collective pride that reminds them that they’re capable engineers. They solved issues themselves, calmly and collaboratively. That’s what readiness looks like.”

Thomas Wohlbruck ‘25, team lead for last year’s winning group, remained an active participant and advisor. He also appreciated the competition and camaraderie with the Fairleigh Dickinson trebuchet team.

“FDU is a strong competitor with extraordinary people,” Wohlbruck noted. “We needed our trebuchet to perform perfectly, and when I saw that long launch, I knew that we were in the clear. Then after the competition, both teams got together to see how our trebuchets would behave as we increased the loads until our trebuchets failed. It emphasized the nature of our competition — we’re all competing to win, but we’re still kind and friendly to one another.”

This fun, hands-on event reinforced the fundamentals of the students’ rigorous academic training, allowing them to integrate learnings from statics, dynamics, mechanics of materials, circuits and design courses with innovative approaches to real-world challenges.

“This isn’t just about launching a volleyball,” Pournorouz said. “It’s about launching students into learning that sticks.”