![]() Immediately after opening the kit, we cleared a table edge, clamped the catapult in place, and played around with the wiffle and ping pong balls and got a feel for how the catapult works, how you change the launch angle and pull-back angle separately, and how the use of the rubber bands can affect the way the object flies. We were not planning to experiment right away, but my students were really eager to see how the catapult worked. Remove the pin, unfold it, replace the pin, slip a rubber band through the holes, and clamp the catapult to the edge of a table or chair. Unlike some science activities, there is virtually zero setup with the catapult. (Be careful that they don't end up "lost" in the living room before your project or science activity starts!) Portable, No-mess Science Setup! My kids couldn't wait to get it out of the box and start launching balls through the house. Teachers and parents can easily turn the results of even informal ping pong catapult launches into a way to talk about statistics, including creating a histogram to plot results.īefore or after the school science project, however, you can use the catapult as a great indoor or outdoor science toy. With all of these projects, keeping track of the data for every launch, hit, or kick is an important part of the exploration. There are plenty of math and physics questions to ask and investigate using the Ping Pong Catapult. Is your student more sports-minded than medieval? With a makeshift footfall field goal in place, you can explore kicking science, or, turn the catapult on its side and do an experiment related to baseball swings instead. (See Under Siege! Use a Catapult to Storm Castle Walls for a project like this!) In the Bombs Away! A Ping Pong Catapult project, students aim for a simple container target (e.g., shoe box), but for fun, you could create a castle from blocks, LEGO® bricks, or random household items or recycled containers, and either aim to knock the structure down with your ping pong ball attack or aim to launch over the structure (e.g., village walls) and into a target container (e.g., the village square or main castle). If your student has an affinity for medieval lore, you can imagine using the device as catapults were once used-for siege-and explore the physics of trajectory with a hands-on simulation. The Ping Pong Catapult has been used as the basis of a number of innovative physics, math, and sports science projects at Science Buddies.
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