Blogger / 15 June, 2020 / Nanny Anita

Craft Stick Catapult Steam Challenge

At the beginning of the year I stated I wanted to do more steam activities with EC as he doesn’t really want to do the crafts any more. Having both EC and YC at home because school is shut has given me a real opportunity to do these sorts of activities with them both. This latest challenge was making craft stick catapults.

Make sure you follow my STEAM board on Pinterest for more ideas. Don’t forget to save the pin for later.

To make your own craft stick catapult you will need:

• Craft sticks
• Hot glue gun
• Cardboard
• Bottle top
• Elastic band
• Duct tape

With these sorts of steam activities I leave the designing up to them. If they got stuck then I would offer them a couple of ideas for them to try out, but otherwise this is all about them doing it.

They started by looking at pictures of catapults to get an idea of what sort of shapes catapults are made up off. They noticed that it was mainly rectangles and triangles.

Once they had the general shape they got going at building it.

This craft stick catapult was fun to build as it really covered a wide range of areas; there was the construction, the physics of force, and their artistic side. After they had finished building them they spent just as much time adding little details like planks for their “figures” to walk on.

The greatest part was actually trying out their catapults. It was amazing to see how well they worked and how far they launched their loads.

If you enjoyed this make sure you check out my simple catapults and wind-up butterflies.

Pin for later: