Luca's Catapult and Castle

Luca's Catapult and Castle

 By Luca Laurence

I created a catapult and castle using wooden stirring sticks. I used a lot of engineering and maths in creating this, especially for the drawbridge.

Materials we used for the Castle
Metal
String
Stirring sticks
Cylinder piece of wood
Hot glue
Nails
Metal

We had to use a saw to cut some of the wood and metal as well as for the catapult.

Materials we used for the catapult 
Stirring sticks
Rubber bands
Hot glue
Bottle cap

Dad and I made a plan of how it was going to work. We bought the materials that we needed then we started to make it. It took us about a week. Firstly we organised everything where it should go before hot glueing it in place. We doubled all of the sticks to make it stronger. We did the base first, then worked up from there. The arm isn’t hot glued to the base, it is held on with rubber bands so it can move. We used hot glue and rubber bands to hold it together. We also used the rubberband so when we pulled the arm back it created tension then when it was let go it released the energy and made the ball fly. We used a marble as the missile. The first time we tried to use the catapult it wasn’t powerful enough so we added more rubber bands but then it was too powerful and just fell apart. So then we talked about how we could make it stronger but not fall apart. We put the rubber bands in different places to get it just right. It took quite a few changes to get it just right. After we made the catapult we made the castle. We laid everything out again where it needed to be before hot glueing. We crossed over sticks on each section of the wall to make them stronger.

My best part of the castle was the working drawbridge. We hot glued string to the drawbridge then attached it to the wooden cylinder. We used some cut nails and metal to make the string not touch the castle otherwise it would rub on the castle and move in the wrong direction. The string goes around the cylinder that has a nail right through it and turns to the right, closes it and turns to the left and opens it.

I put a lot of effort into this project. There were heaps of problems to solve and we had to change our plan a few times. I liked having to think of other ways to make it work.