There is a phrase that says, "If you build it, they will come."

High school students gather in the Sandhills of Arthur County for the Thrills in the Hills Competition.

“We wanted to build a full scale catapult because we had a really good group of physics students, and thought it would be a good idea to make it into a competition.  This was good chance to give students an opportunity to do some engineering and build something full scale and apply the knowledge they picked up in the classroom,” says Joe Kupper, Arthur Co. Science Teacher.

Jordan Trimble and his classmates built the catapult from the ground up; a project that took about four months to complete.

“We went to a lot of parents' family ranches and looked at what they would be willing to loan us for a little while.  One of our classmates had an old truck that didn't work anymore, so we tore it apart and used it for the base of our catapult,” says Will Lauge, Arthur Co. 12th Grade.

“Initially when we first thought about building the catapult, the competition wasn't there so it was just about building a successful catapult and knowing that you did it.  But once we came up with the idea for the competition, if you put that much work into it nobody is going to want to lose the competition, so there is a lot of us that wants to go out there and win and I think deep down that is the goal here,” says Jordan Trimble , Arthur Co. 12th Grade.

Each team must then come up with a design that will sling a sixteen pound bowling ball the farthest.

“Well we looked at a lot of pictures on the internet and watched a lot of videos, and we just figured out what would work best,” says Isaac Jackson, Anselmo Merna 11th Grade.

“We all had our own thing some people set the ball, others put the arm down so we knew what we were doing, so we're just happy with what it did,” says Luke Meyers, Anselmo Merna 11th Grade.

Seven schools from surrounding counties competed for trophies in the first annual competition.

A competition that gives students hands on learning; win or lose.

“It was fun; it was a lot of fun.  It was a lot better than studying text books every day, and I think we learned a lot from it as well.  I learned how to torch for one thing it was a learning experience and it was fun bonding time.  It was good,” says Lauge.

“Going into college, I hope that this helps me learn how to do experiments and problem solve with the catapult itself and prepare me for anything else,” says Trimble.

Arthur County won the competition with a distance of 348 feet.

Brady came in second with 333.

And Axtel came in third with 264.