Fruit Fight

Bringing History to Life

Who says learning about history must be stuffy?

Earlier this year, UTA history students challenged their engineering counterparts in Raul Fernandez's “Introduction to Engineering Design” course to build and fire historically accurate trebuchets. The result was flying cantaloupes—and real-world learning.

Dr. Fernandez's course requires first-year students to design, build, and test a mechanical device. When he offered them the opportunity to build a trebuchet—a type of catapult—several students took him up on it.

“The benefit of hands-on experience can never be overstated, because that's where you really learn how the engineering process works and how to tweak ideas,” Fernandez says. ₪