From the design process to fun books to key vocabulary terms…you can feel confident providing these valuable skills. Halloween Catapult More Engineering Resourcesīelow you’ll find various engineering resources to supplement the many engineering projects on the website. How about 6 or 10? What are the differences when tested?ĪLSO CHECK OUT: Easy Science Fair Projects You can also test out the number of popsicle sticks used in the stack to create the tension need to launch the catapult. What kinds of conclusions can they draw from the information gathered? Which item worked the best? Which item didn’t work well at all? Have your kids fire each material 10 times and record the distance each time. Additionally, you can encourage older kids to record the data from measuring all the launches. This is an awesome way to reinforce what the child is learning with a super fun activity. Why? Have fun setting up a catapult to test the theory! Can you design a different catapult using the same materials? Which item will go farther? I think xyz will go farther. Or you can build 2-3 different catapults and see which one works better or if one works better with different objects.Īlways start out asking a question to come up with a hypothesis. Adding a measuring tape encourages simple math concepts that my 2nd grader is just really starting to explore. You can easily set up an experiment by testing different weighted items to see which ones fly farther. Log your results with this free printable science worksheet for your catapult activity and add it to a science journal! Have your kids dig up a little history and research when the first catapults were invented and used! Hint check out the 17th century! Free Printable Catapult Activity When you release the stick, all that potential energy is released into energy in motion producing the projectile motion.Ī catapult is a simple machine that has been around for ages. You can talk about stored energy or potential elastic energy as you pull back on the Popsicle stick, bending it. To delve deeper into Newton’s Laws, check out the information here. Gravity also does its part as it pulls the object back down to the ground. When you pull down the lever arm all that potential energy gets stored up! Release it and that potential energy gradually changes over to kinetic energy. Newton’s 3 Laws of Motion state that an object at rest stays at rest until a force is applied, and an object stays in motion until something creates an imbalance. You can also learn about projectile motion. What is there to explore that has to do with physics? Let’s start with energy including elastic potential energy. With older kids, you can even introduce the concept of trajectories and dive a little deeper into the math behind catapults.This is a great simple physics activity for kids of multiple ages. See if your kids can hit varying targets by moving the position of the craft sticks, altering how hard or gently they pull the pumpkin back, and using varying weights of pumpkins. This becomes a Fall STEM activity when you give it goals. Stabilize the bottom of the catapult and pull the top piece back. Glue the bottle cap to the top side of the wedge and let dry. Tie 2 other craft sticks together on one end, then shove the craft sticks over the craft stick stack creating a wedge. Stack 8 craft sticks together and tie with pipe cleaners on two ends. Mini pumpkins (can use real or decorative).What you’ll need for the pumpkin catapult: Learn how to make your own pumpkin catapult using our simple directions. * This post may contain affiliate links for your convenience. We gave this project a fall twist by making a pumpkin catapult Fall STEM activity. Nothing is as fun to them as launching things across the room, preferably at each other. One of their favorite experiments is building catapults. My active kiddos love hands-on STEM projects, and they are particularly fond of engineering experiments. Sometimes, they won’t get a concept until we’ve done it in a hands-on activity form. Because my kiddos are such active learners, I’ve had to be creative in how I present concepts they are learning at school and elsewhere. They would rather run and jump around a room than sit and read a book or fill out a worksheet.
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