So far Emily and I have completed one side of the trebuchet and have begun work on the other side. We were working fairly slowly in the beginning because we weren't sure on what to do and had to discuss most things, but recently we have been doing things more automatically and it is progressing much faster. The main issue we have encountered is that the nails are too long for the materials we are using. Even if we use the smallest ones, they will still go all the way through the wood. This is an issue as it is splitting the wood and would definitely be weakening the structure. We have glued extra pieces over the top of parts that have been particularly affected by this to try to hold it together, but that is fairly time consuming and won't solve the problem completely. Other than that, the machines seem to be fairly crowded because it is such a large class, and it is quite slow when you have to return to them frequently to make small adjustments to angles. That can't really be helped though.
If we have time at the end we are going to add more supports to each side to strengthen them even further, so they will hopefully be able to hold even more weight. I am fairly sure we are on track to finish by the due date, and am quite confident that our trebuchet will operate well on the day.
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