Physics Week Four

There wasn't really a lesson in our class during Week Four, as we spent the class time constructing working model catapults.  We purchased the kits from Pitsco Education.  (I found out about Pitsco's great products when members of the TOS Review Crew reviewed these catapult and trebuchet kits.  You can get more info, and read their reviews at the TOS Homeschool Crew blog.)  As it turned out, we were missing a couple of adult helpers in class, so I was a little busier than I expected helping everyone out and I didn't take any pictures during class at all!

Of course, I had previously put together a catapult at home to test it.

This is our finished product -

In class, the students worked in pairs to construct the catapults.  For the most part, it went well, but there were a couple of places in the instructions where it seemed like everyone got confused.  Fortunately, in all but one case, we were able to fix the imperfectly aligned pieces before the glue set.  Also, we had a couple of broken pieces - the trigger pieces too, and those are kind of important!  I am working on those little details at home, and if all goes well, we will have every one of those catapults in working order so that we can play with them in class this week!

For Week Five, we will test the firepower of our catapults and learn more about how they work.

This is the fourth post in a series - Physics Week One (gravity and friction), Physics Week Two (structural engineering), Physics Week Three (suspension bridges)

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