Cornell Engineering Essay - Catapult Creation

I don't really like the title, but I'm not creative enough to think of a better one :D

Let me know what you think of my essay, any suggestions would be nice!

Prompt: College of Engineering: Engineers turn ideas (technical, scientific, mathematical) into reality. Tell us about an engineering idea you have or your interest in engineering. Explain how Cornell Engineering can help you further explore this idea or interest. (500 words)

A wooden plank, two curtain rods, a protractor, a few nails, some screws, and a relatively sloppily cut plastic water bottle sat before me on the carpet. Soon these seemingly random materials would come together to build a unique and one of a kind catapult. It all started when I heard about the PUD: Power for the Future student science competition over the intercom during our school's morning announcements. My goal was to build a catapult that would launch white, lightweight wiffle balls into concentric rings of buckets. The innermost bucket was worth the most points, reminiscent of a ball toss game at an annual carnival.

Although in the beginning I was completely clueless as how I was going to create such a complex mechanism, the ideas soon began to flow. I attached the bottom third of the water bottle to the curtain rod to form a throwing arm via screw, and attached the middle of the throwing arm to the base which consisted of a perpendicular curtain rod and the board of wood. I was quickly enthralled by my newest project and spent almost all my free time working on it. I decided to make the spring out of an old rust colored bungee cord. In order to make each throw precise, I glued on a protractor to the vertical curtain rod, so that I could measure how far I pulled back the throwing arm and documented how far the ball flew.

When it came time to test my contraption for the first time, I was filled with suspense. I had put massive amounts of effort into such a small device, and I couldn't wait to see it pay off. I carefully placed the off-white wiffle ball into the cup and pulled back the throwing arm. Upon releasing it, joy washed over me as the ball sailed through the air. It was a success!

The competition was fierce, and although I didn't place in the competition, I still had fun creating my home-made catapult. Because of that experience I was able to find my true passion of engineering and believe that Cornell is the best place to pursue this career path. Besides the fact that Cornell Engineering receives numerous excellence awards every year, provides a high quality education, and is a world-class research university, it has thirteen majors that will help me find my perfect fit. I'm currently looking to major in computer science or electrical and computer engineering and recognize that Cornell's rigorous courses will provide me with the education I thrive for. By providing me with opportunities such as the Cooperative Education program and Kessler Fellows Program, I will be able to use my knowledge in a real world application and practice what I have learned. I believe that with an education from Cornell I will be able to "catapult" myself into an engineering career.

This is well written but you seem to forget there are 2 parts to the prompt that you should answer equally well. Expand on how Cornell can help you achieving your goals and keep elaborating on that. Good luck!

Return the favor and read my essay please:

Okay so I revised it a little and hopefully added more to the "Why Cornell" part. Let me know if I need to add more. Thanks :) Oh and I really don't like the title at all, I'm not very creative and I want something that will catch people's attention. Any ideas or ways to change it would be greatly appreciated!

Bump

I really want some help with the title and if I covered the "Why Cornell" part :)

Sort of redundant... (actually, they mean exactly the same thing)


Personally, I don't like your use of "relatively" there - doesn't add much


What's PUD?


I think you go too much into detail here. Maybe not though - that's just my view.


What specifically about the experience? It seems like you did a lot of things!

End is sort of cliche, I think, but it *is* related to the essay

I think overall this is an okay essay. It could be great, but I think you need to rework how you treat this event. I can't pin it down exactly, but the bang of the essay seems to be missing.

Thanks for your input!
I removed "unique," "relatively," and wrote out "Public Utility District" instead of PUD.

I was a little confused on the "precise" part, should I change it? Or was it okay to use it?

I changed "Because of that experience I was able to find my true passion of engineering and believe that Cornell is the best place to pursue this career path." to be "When I realized how my classroom knowledge could be used to create a three dimensional object, my true passion of engineering began."

I also decided to delete the last sentence - it was a little too corny :]

Hopefully that will make it a little better!
Thanks again for the revisions :)