Headline Clickable. Whether raw or cooked, food can be chock-full of dangerous bacteria long before you can smell it. Perishable food (like chicken and other meats) should be tossed if left out at room temperature more than two hours (much less if in a warm room).
Catapult physics is basically the use of stored energy to hurl a projectile (the payload), without the use of an explosive. The three primary energy storage mechanisms are tension, torsion, and gravity.
A trebuchet tends to be easier to build because it consists simply of a pivoting beam and a counterweight that rotates the beam through an arc. Catapults can launch things a fair distance -- 500 to 1,000 feet (150 to 300 meters) is common. It is surprising how much energy they can store. The gears are important, because they create a winch. The winch allows a person to put a great deal of energy into the catapult over a period of time.