Engineering in Ponyville

by Cogneato Switch

Rainbow Catapult

(Occurs during S1E4 Applebuck Season)

Cogneato walked down the street when he was suddenly knocked over by a blue pegasus with rainbow hair. The pegasus jumped up and shook herself off. “Heh, sorry about that” she apologized.
Cogneato got up too. “It’s no problem. What were you doing?”
“I was trying to do my signature move, the Double Dash Loop-the-loop, but I couldn’t get enough speed.”
“Hm…” Cogneato immediately started thinking of a solution. “Well, how do you get your speed now?”
“Now? I fly up really high and then come down as fast as I can. Then I turn quickly into the loop.”
An idea came into Cogneato’s mind. “I think I have something that can help you. It’s a catapult!”
“A cata-wha?”
“A catapult. You would sit on one side and somepony else would jump on the other” Cogneato had his hoof on his chin in thought. “It would send you flying up with a lot of speed.”
“That sounds amazing!” The pegasus cheered. “I’m Rainbow Dash, by-the-way.”
“I’m Cogneato. Pleased to meet you!” Cogneato nodded at Rainbow Dash. “I’ll need to do some calculations, but then I can set it up in the commons. How about we meet back in two days?”
“You got it!” Rainbow Dash was thrilled.
Smiling, Cogneato continued on his way.
A moment later the whole city started shaking. Rainbow Dash look up and saw something coming over the hills. “Stampede!” she yelled out.

The next day, Cogneato walked to the library. He opened the door and stepped in. “Excuse me?” he asked.
Twilight spun around.
“Who are you?” Twilight blurted out of curiosity.
“Oh, I’m Cogneato. Are you Twilight Sparkle?”
“Why yes, yes I am!” Twilight revelled in how her name has been getting around town.
Suddenly Cogneato ran up to her, looked over her mane and spoke very quickly “Oh my goodness! Is it true that you’re Princess Celestia’s personal student? Was it really you who defeated Nightmare Moon? I can’t believe that you found that in an old book! You must read a whole lot of books! Well, you must love books a lot, because you live in a library, right? So you must read a lot…”
“Woah there!” Twilight said, calming him down. “Yes, I am Princess Celestia’s student, and, though I read about Nightmare Moon’s return, it was with my friends and the elements of harmony that we were able to defeat Nightmare Moon.”
“That’s amazing!”

“Thank you” Twilight was still preening.
“You’ve got to be the most powerful unicorn in all of equestria! No wonder Mayor Mare paid to move me here from Canterlot.”
“Mayor Mare?”
“Yes. The Mayor specifically asked me to live in Ponyville, just in case.”
“Just in case of what?” Twilight asked suspiciously.
“Well, uh, in case of any catastrophes.” Cogneato looks at the ground, avoiding eye-contact.
“What do you mean, Cogneato?” Twilight confronted.
“Um, well, when a student of your talent is honing her skills, sometimes … things happen.”
“Like what?” Twilight was both taken aback and desperately curious.
Cogneato crouched back timidly. “Nothing big, really. Or at least, nothing that couldn’t be fixed. When you lived in Canterlot, sometimes rooms were wrecked and need to be put back together, or buildings were damaged and needed to be repaired.”
“I guess that’s true.” Twilight backed off, contemplating what kind of messes she might have made.
Spike chimed in, “Remember that time you blew off the roof of the classroom?”
“Oh, right.” Twilight looked away, embarrassed.
“I remember, I fixed that!” Cogneato stood up.
“Sorry about that.” Twilight crouched back.
“It’s okay, it was easy to fix.” Cogneato said proudly. “The roof landed in an empty road. It was only a matter of balancing the aligning mechanism on another building, moving the roof back into place, and patching it back on. It took less than a day.”
Cogneato was beaming so much that Twilight couldn’t help but feel better. “I’m glad that I didn’t cause too much trouble.”
“It was my pleasure!”

“So what brings you here? Besides meeting Celestia’s best student, I mean.”
“Well, you live in a library. I was wondering, do you lend out books?”
“Oh, I’m not sure! I guess I can lend out a book, as long as you promise to give it back.”
“I promise!”
“Alright! Is there a specific book you’re interested in?”
“I was looking for a book about engineering. There are a few equations that I want to look up.”
“Hm…” Twilight looked up at the shelves thoughtfully. She used her magic to levitate one of the books down and held it in front of Cogneato. “How about this one?”
“Concepts and Applications of Engineering, that’s perfect.”
“Great!” Twilight turned to Spike. “Spike, take a note. The book Concepts and Applications of Engineering was lent to Cogneato.”
“Got it!”
“Thank you so much!” Cogneato cheered. “I’ll return it in two weeks” Cogneato grabbed the book out of the air with his mouth.
“Due back in two weeks” she continued. Twilight then levitated the parchment and filed it into a folder and placed the folder in a shelf. “Enjoy your book!”
Cogneato walked out of the library, happy.

The next day, Cogneato brought the catapult out to the commons, along with a diving ladder. A moment later, Rainbow Dash arrived.
“So how does that work?” she asked, skeptically.
Cogneato pointed as he explained “You’re going to sit on that spot there, and I’m going to climb up to the top of the ladder and jump on to this point here.”
Rainbow nodded.
“That should send you flying much faster.”
“Awesome! Let’s do it!” Rainbow cheered as she got into position.
Cogneato climbed the ladder and jumped off, landing squarely onto the catapult, launching Rainbow Dash into the sky. She began her trick but stalled out and crashed into Cogneato.
“What went wrong?” Cogneato asked, after brushing himself off.
“Well, I think your do-hickey worked, but I still didn’t get enough speed.”
“Hm…” Cogneato grabbed a nearby stick and started drawing some equations in the loose dirt. Rainbow Dash thought too. They both came to a conclusion at the same time.
“I think I need a cheerleader.”
“I think you need more mass.”
“More what?”
“You need a what?”
“I need somepony to cheer me on!” Rainbow Dash said excitedly. “No offense, but I’m not exactly inspired by your cheers.”
“But I wasn’t cheering…” Cogneato protested with confusion
“Exactly!”
“I think you need more mass. Something heavier needs to hit the catapult.”
“What exactly are you saying?” Rainbow seemed defensive.
“Um…” Cogneato hesitated “I mean, you need somepony who’s stronger than me to hit the catapult.” Rainbow nodded as Cogneato continued “Somepony who works out a lot and stays close to the ground. Probably an athlete.”
“I know just the pony!” Rainbow dash said excitedly. “Could you leave the cata-pult here for a while until I can use it again?”
“Sure thing, Rainbow Dash!”
“Thanks again, Cogneato!”

A week later, Cogneato all but forgot about the catapult, but one day he looked out his window and saw Rainbow dash flying through the sky. He immediately jumped up and ran out to the commons to see the maneuver. But by the time he got there, nopony was there.
“Rainbow Dash!” Cogneato called out.
Soon, Rainbow Dash appeared. “Oh hi Cogneato!”
“I saw you fly through the air. Did you get the speed you wanted?”
“No!” Rainbow Dash was upset. “I got the best most dependable pony in Ponyville out here and she launched me when I wasn’t ready!”
“Oh dear” Cogneato imagined the crash-landing it must have caused. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, I’m fine” but she still seemed upset.
“Maybe you could show me what your trick is supposed to look like?” Cogneato offered.
“But I can’t do it!”
“No” he pointed at the dirt “I mean draw it in the dirt.”
Rainbow Dash seemed confused “Okay, I guess I can do that.” She took a stick and drew the trajectory of her trick. Afterwards, she explained “See, to do these upward loops, I need to have enough speed to make a whirlwind. Then I can fly through it sideways.”
Cogneato nodded. “And its these upward loops that are the problem?”
“Yeah! I can do them, of course, but not fast enough to make the whirlwind.”
Cogneato thought for a moment. “What if you made them downward loops?”
“What?” Rainbow Dash was a little confused.
Cogneato drew in the dirt the same maneuver with the downward loops. “If you made them downward loops, your increased speed would probably give you the wind you want.”
“Hey, you know, that might work!” Rainbow got excited again. “I’m going to try it right now.” Suddenly she took off and was high in the sky. She came down and then dropped down even faster through the downward loops, causing a whirlwind. She then flung herself into it sideways where it carried her. She then flew fast in a different direction, creating a very sharp angle in her rainbow trail. She then landed softly in front of Cogneato.
Cogneato clomped the ground as he cheered. “Bravo! Well done!”
“Thank you! Thank you!” Rainbow Dash bowed. She then stood up. “Really thank you Cogneato! Without you I wouldn’t have been able to do it!”
“You are welcome!”
“Now I’m off to do another trick!” she took off.