Tractor-pull competition a crowd pleaser

10 June 2013

Tractor-pull competition a crowd pleaser at Waikato physics day

Loud engines, fumes and mud are what would usually be expected from a tractor-pull competition. But not this time. Last week the University of Waikato hosted a tractor-pull of the electric kind, featuring model-tractors which were designed and built by secondary school students.

The competition was held during Osborne Physics and Engineering (OsPEn) Days and required secondary school physics students to create a small battery-powered model tractor that can tow a loaded model trailer a distance of five meters up a 4° inclined plane.

The winners of the Thursday competition were a team from Waiuku College. Their model-tractor sped up the ramp in the fastest overall time of 15 seconds while pulling a 500-gram trailer. The Waiuku team included Stuart Kautai, Evan Vonbatenburg, TK Yeh, Matthew Gerbich, Ruth van der Pleog, Josh Cox, Drew Marris, Moana Sterling, Sam Furniss and James Ditchburn.

“We were sent a 3-volt electric motor and a set of nylon gears by Waikato University. We only just finished our tractor yesterday – it was harder than we anticipated, so we just tried to keep the design simple,” says Waiuku College team leader Drew Marris.

The winning team during the Friday competition was Gabe Hawkins, James Flett and Myles Couldwell from St Peter’s School, Cambridge. The team’s tractor pulled the 500-gram trailer up the ramp in just 10 seconds.

The competition was part of the University of Waikato’s 27th annual OsPEn Days, aimed at Year 12 and 13 students who are high achievers in science. Over 600 students from as far afield as New Plymouth and Hawke’s Bay attended lectures and practical demonstrations. The focus was on applications of physics, with speakers providing examples such as the Large Hadron Collider and the Higgs Boson, close encounters of the asteroid kind, battery-electric cars and fracture of materials.

Osborne Lectures began in 1986 in honour of Dr Roger Osborne, who taught physics at Waikato University from 1970 to 1985. During this time he was responsible for organising and presenting a significant number of lectures for Year 12 and 13 physics students in the Waikato region. From 2002 the lectures became known as the OsPEn Days.

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