Catapults & Trebuchets (Toledo 2006)

This was a year where I changed my Catapult Project to make it accessible to more kids.  In the past a few kids could not seem to get underway and build a catapult because the dimensions they pictured were over their heads.  This year I opened it up and had three categories:

1) The Giant category, where you could build and shoot at home and just bring a movie to class which we showed all the kids.  That was a LOT of fun!

2) The miniature category, where the catapult could be any size, but it had to shoot a distance related to the length of the arm (5 times the length of the arm was the minimum distance.)  A lot of kids built these just for fun.  I had kids bring in several catapults on sequential days in advance of the due date because they were having so much fun and wanted to show off.  What a ball!

3) The "standard" catapult where students had to shoot a minimum of 3 meters at a target (a ring on the ground) and were graded according to their accuracy; they had to take three shots.


Copyright 2012 Jay Reimer    (You can email me at jay.reimer@gmail.com