![]() ![]() Start with one of the suggestions below, but get the kids involved in finding soft and safe alternatives. ![]() The good news is that modern life has provided many alternatives to the medieval rock. The three primary energy storage mechanisms are tension, torsion, and gravity (Newton’s laws) Together, Katapultos means “shield piercer.”Ĭatapult physics is basically the use of stored energy to hurl a projectile (the payload), without the use of an explosive. Read more about the science behind the catapult and simple ways to create a catapult science experiment below STEP 3: Test and measure how far each item goes when flung from the catapult. “Catapult” comes from two Greek words, “Kata” which means downward and “pultos” which is a small shield. You can re-enact medieval battles or just fling stuff across the room with this fun Popsicle stick catapult. STEP 2: Hand out supplies to each individual or in small groups, and build a Popsicle stick catapult following the instructions below. Catapults have been used since ancient times all the way to World War I. They proved themselves very effective as siege weapons and invaluable on the battlefield. Catapults were first invented to hurl projectiles farther than any human could. The science behind a catapultĮven though your kids will see catapults as a fun activity, there is a lot of science involved with the laws of motion. Push down on the spoon and release to launch an object from catapult. Wrap a rubber band around all of the craft sticks to hold the catapult together. Place the stack of 5 craft sticks between the lolly stick and spoon. Separate the spoon and the popsicle stick. We prefer a wooden spoon to a plastic one for our popsicle stick catapult design as it gives without cracking making for a better “fling”. Stack 1 popsicle stick and the wooden spoon together and wrap a loom band around the very end. Stack 5 lolly sticks together and wrap a loom band around each end Experiment with different distances, and even different amounts of popsicle sticks in the stack, to see what works best.How to make a catapult out of popsicle sticks When the stacked popsicle sticks are farther from the elastic on the spoon, the objects tend to be shot straight up in the air. The closer they are to the elastic, the farther the projectile will go. You can also change the angle of the catapult by moving the stacked popsicle sticks closer to the elastic on the spoon. If your spoon is flexible enough, pull it right down to the table before releasing it to get more speed. Try pulling the spoon down at different angles. Then gravity plays a part, bringing the load back down. Releasing the arm changes the potential energy to kinetic energy, sending the load flying. Pulling down the arm of the catapult is force, which creates potential energy. An object stays at rest until an external force is applied. How levers work can be explained using Newton’s Laws of Motion. With this simple, yet fun activity, you will. You push the arm (plastic spoon) over the fulcrum (popsicle sticks) to launch the load (tin foil balls, or whatever you choose). Its time for some Engineering activity and what better way to hone your skills than building your own Catapult. These popsicle stick catapults are a simple machine called a lever. ![]() You definitely want heavier duty rubber bands for this experiment. We first tried using rainbow loom elastics, but they were too loose. If you don’t have asparagus elastics, thicker elastics, like size #64 rubber bands, will work the best. We used the elastics that were around our asparagus bunches, and they worked perfectly. Make a prediction about which object you think will fly the farthest! Which elastics are best for a popsicle stick catapult? Try paper balls, marshmallows, eraser tops, bottle caps, or pom poms. But you can send any object flying with these catapults (within reason!!), which makes them so much fun. Objects with a bit of weight to them, like a ball of tin foil, are the perfect projectile. What type of projectiles work best in popsicle stick catapults? The full printable instructions are at the end of this post, but here’s a list of products on Amazon that are similar to the supplies we used: If you use these links to buy something we may earn a small commission which helps us run this website. Looking for more fun ideas? Here’s some of our favourites: ![]()
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