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Wow! What an amazing and simple project this was. Great fun to build and experiment with after.

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I remade my catapult as I didn't have enough video footage to make a proper example video. I had fun fine tuning the kinetic energy to make the shot stronger. I ended up creating a strong spoon arm and flung the marble into the fan, over the bench and into the kitchen! The biggest problem I had was my rubber bands were old and continued to snap.

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Hey all, this is my catapult video. I used a plastic spoon instead of of another paddlepop stick as I did not have any type of glue to mount a bottle cap to it with

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The building of the catapult was not easy. (Due to unforeseen circumstances the video of this construction is unavailable). However, I did manage to video the catapult (pg rated) in action with three various materials. Firstly was the ping pong ball which I believed may have been too light for it to be as effective, then was a screwed up piece of electrical tape which I knew would be useless but my husband insisted as seeming he was videoing for me I had to keep him happy and lastly was the m&m as hard as it was to donate for this trial it was the best by far. It outdid the other two items. I believe the weight and the size of the item says alot. Go the m&m!
Video is 3 videos stuck together nothing fancy

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The catapult was fairly easy to make,however the elastic bands did create a small challenge. I would say if this was being create by children in years 3 and 4 they would definitely need assistance but older children year 5 and 6 should be able to make it with limited assistance.

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A little late, sorry. But, here is a snippet, the final few moments of creating and testing. I had four children with me creating their own (ages 7, 8, 10, 11) I found 7 & 8 needed the most assistance with figuring out how to use the elastic bands to tire the paddlepops together. What I found most exciting is the round table discussions, as you can hear it was not particular about the engineering or design of a catapult but a mirrored of unpredictable topics. It was a really life example of why PBL can be used across numerous subjects.
MY APOLOGISE... I HAVE NO IDEA WHY BUT MY VIDEO WILL NOT UPLOAD.... I WILL TRY TO FIX IT TOMORROW... GRRRR

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Building the catapult was not as easy as it looked. I went through quite a lot of rubber bands, they were breaking and flying off all around the room. My first attempt crashed dismally, I could not get it to stand straight and then when I did try to catapult the paper ball it just fell apart. I realized the tension on the rubber bands were way to tight, so the frame was collapsing on me. With a lot of perseverance, the second attempt was a success, with less tension on the rubber bands, I managed to make the catapult work.

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I attempted both concepts shown of the catapult and had my son test them both. We found that when using rocks it was easier to launch using our second concept and the first concept would need to be modified to make it easier to hold the item being launched. The first concept we had a weak paddle pop stick or had the spoon situated to far down causing a break in our catapult.

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It took me two goes to get the construction to a stage that I was happy with. In my first attempt I used thicker, bigger icy pole sticks. It was not a success, so I began again using thinner sticks. This was much better. I wouldn't say it was simple, I still had to experiment and use a little bit of trial and error to get it right. As you will see in the video, my first launch was a bit of a flop - the stone was too heavy. The second projectile was a cherry pip. It flew!

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I found the first catapult I made quite challenging, no matter how I tied the elastic bands, I still found the structure was weak. It was actually my partner who decided my struggles were not entertaining after multiple attempts and came and demonstrated how he would tie the elastic bands. I found the biggest difference between our attempts (Mine not working and his working) was the size of the elastic band used.
After getting over that mine stone, the rest followed. I did find when projecting the jelly babies, I was unable to do it one handed... which made filming difficult. The second catapult design I tried, I found made more sense to me and had further projection compare to the first one. It was easier to make but also was sturdier making it more durable than the first.

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Constructing my catapult was actually harder then I thought it would be. I used plastic knives as I had them at home ready to go. I struggled mainly with adding the rubber bands to each knife to secure them together as they were a thinner shape so the rubber band had to go around them a little bit differently. After a few attempts I discovered easier ways to be able to do this and this is something I would try to mention to the children to think about this while they did this project.

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I had my 8 year old sister attempt to make the a-frame catapult with my guidance. She had a bit of trouble with the rubber bands, but also holding the catapult straight while tying the . We decided to research another way to build the catapult, after watching some YouTube videos and reading some STEM websites, we decided to build the catapult in the video below and then we used it to feed my dogs some treats! I think i have found a new little scientist as she has already asked to make a slingshot. 

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I had my 8 year old sister attempt to make the a-frame catapult with my guidance. She had a bit of trouble with the rubber bands, but also holding the catapult straight while tying the . We decided to research another way to build the catapult, after watching some YouTube videos and reading some STEM websites, we decided to build the catapult in the video below and then we used it to feed my dogs some treats! I think i have found a new little scientist as she has already asked to make a slingshot. 

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Making the catapult was an interesting process. Lots of fine motor work involved so this would need to be considered if you have students who struggle with this. No plastic spoon was at my parents house so a metal spoon was used. This made the catapulting arm quite heavy so the projectile (a $2 coin) didn't fly far. But the potential is clear. A great project for students in Years 4+ I think.

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I decided to get my 9 year old (stage 2) daughter to make this and observe. She found it a little difficult to tie the elastics at times, so I started doing my own catapult along side her to model examples of using the elastics. With this, she was able to assimilate ideas and construct new designs. To make it more fun we added POPCORN to the mix! We used our catapult to fling popcorn into her mouth (by far her favourite part).

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I used sticks from the garden to give a more authentic medieval look. I also used a metal spoon which I think may have help reduce the distance the projectile traveled.

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Finally finished with building prototypes and have finished my final release.

This video is a collection of images taken during the construction process.

I have uploaded my sketch, PMI, and planner on imgur.

Feedback appreciated.

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These are my last two build, the one with the green rubber bands is the closest I am to a final product (v0.9).

Kim,

could you let me know if the planner is filled out in a manner you are expecting from us or am I misunderstanding it (planner appears at the end of the projectile launch video). Thanks

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This build took much longer as it was more involved.

My PMI with a little description of some of the issues.

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My Catapult creation. I am actually going to conduct this STEM lesson at school on Monday with several students.

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I thought I’d try both versions shown on the weebly and experiment with changes to the lever arm and how that affected the projectile.

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I live pretty rurally and was not able to source the 'popsticks' required ... so I improvised! Like Hannah I too discovered you need to get the tension just right in places for the build to work and not pull in on itself (particularly when working with curved materials as I did).

First attempt was a success as seen in the video. Thanks to those who give it a watch as well as my apologies as I was in an Evermoore mood music wise ...

Further reflections at the end of the video and throughout.

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Quiet happy how my first try without following any instructions and not trying to copy designs I've already seen. It's a minimalistic design, but does the trick. The build took me less than 5min.

Here are a few pics to get a better view of the build [https://imgur.com/a/oT3as5f].

Next build will have a crossbar that is further down so that the arm doesn't do a full 90deg spin. This will mean reduced speed at release point, but I'm hoping that a better trajectory will make up for this.

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I found out that these things need to be done pretty perfectly, that a little spice needs to be added to the instructions sometimes and that shooting people with popcorn is not a good idea!

First time I've used iMovie, other than just playing around. Second time I made a catapult, first one failed...

Also, I apologise for the music... German.

Also, I can't seem to get the video up right now... I think it needs to load or something, will see what happens.