Thanks to this Newton’s Lab Make Your Own Catapult kit from Kikkerlandeu.com, this Easter half term, we have been having fun catapulting lots of treats to our buddy dog Mabel. Through this kit, we have been learning about Newton’s first law of inertia and gravity by making our own catapult. Then we measured how far projectiles land and plotted the variations on a graph chart.
This kit is suitable for aged 14 and above, which is an ideal project for Mr K to keep him busy this Easter break. He had fun building it and using it to catapult treats to Mabel. Mabel has also enjoyed the challenge of trying to catch them.
This kit comes with die-cut cardboard pieces, 3M stickers, an elastic band, metal joints, string and a ping pong ball. The illustrated instructions are printed on the box, which is very easy to follow. Mr K had no problem understanding the step-by-step. He did need plenty of help to slide the cardboard pieces into one another.
Even though the cardboard pieces are very strong and thick, too much pressure or force can bend or ruin the cardboard during building. We have two supporting cardboard pieces that are bent but it hasn’t affected the structure of the catapult. It took him 30 minutes to build as it is not easy to slot all the pieces together. Once it is built, the catapult looks very strong and sturdy.
It also comes with an ‘S’ metal hook and string. We think the string is to thread into the small hole on the base and the S hook is for the small hole on the catapult launcher. Once the S hook is hooked onto the thread, the catapult launcher is in a flat position, ready for placing the ping pong ball for launching. The instructions didn’t specify where to put the hook and string.
With this catapult, we are using X amount of force on the ping pong ball and then that ping pong ball will have Z amount of acceleration. Then watch it fall due to gravity. Mr K decided to launch both ping pong ball and some dog treats using different strengths and watched Mabel try to catch them all. There are three different sized targets provided.
This is a fun kit to buy for teenagers to discover the physical world while playing. It can be dismantled and stored flat for future use. It is available to buy from Kikkerlandeu.com at RRP £15.
Disclosure: We received the sample for the purposes of writing this review, however, all thoughts and opinions remain our own.