Catapults!

we finally made them!  I read about Almost Unschoolers making one eons ago.  We really wanted to make some.  Check her post for directions.

Actually we made these last week, but I am just now getting around to putting up the pictures.

We wanted to start right away, but the kitchen table had no room.  So someone had to be conned into cleaning it.  I was nursing; Daddy was finishing up finding the supplies.  So the kids got to work.  They actually finished before Daddy or I.  If you have seen the normal speed of my kids you would be very impressed by this!

Rather than let them feel like they hurried for nothing I asked each of them to draw 'plans' for a catapult.  I was kinda impressed with their designs.

Dude's design included Cerberus, who would put a red bouncy ball in each of the three baskets...(he is the blob in the top middle)














While Little Man's and Princess' both looked very much like trebuchets. (side note, apparently blogger can't spell trebuchet)

Then we found out Daddy took so long because the only Popsicle sticks we had were only two inches long.  seriously who needs such a tiny stick?  Ah well Daddy found some substitutes.  Of course since we were changing one thing, why not a whole lot more?  We eventually had four slightly different versions.

Unfortunately I had baby business so I only managed to snap one good photo of them at work

Here Little Man managed to split the wood, so we had to try to screw the painter stick on differently.

Here are all three wooden ones completed.  We put them all on one block of wood, mainly because we only had one block.  If we had more supplies I think we would have come up with more versions!

When we tested them we noticed the longer painters stick went farther, but without propping it up, the balls only went into the air.

The chopstick version had no basket, so it was very hard to use.



While we were working on those three, Dude said he had directions for a different kind in his Webelos book.  So of course we tried them too.

Our rubber bands were too big.  So we had some jury rigging to do.  The end product worked but had lousy aim.It was hard to guess which way the spoon would twist.






All in all it was a lot of fun.  Very glad I found those directions!  Thanks Almost Unschoolers!