M&M Catapult

Last weekend I came across an M&M catapult project on Sean Sweeney's blog. This really got me excited because I was just starting to teach the unit on Quadratic Functions with my Gr.11 Math 20 Pure students.

I read and reread Sean's blog post this past week. Last night I made a list of materials I needed to construct these catapults for my class. Today I built 10 of these awesome little devices.




The building of the first catapult took a little bit of time. After I constructed the first catapult I then tested it to see how well it worked. I was getting distances of between 2 and 3 feet with the catapult. Not bad, I thought, this will be good for a classroom setting.

After the first catapult was built and tested I changed a few things to speed up production. I had used wood glue to build the first catapult. While it holds well it takes a while to dry. On my wife's suggestion, I used her crafting glue gun to construct the second catapult. What a difference!!! The next 9 catapults went together in no time flat.

I can hardly wait to have my students work on this M&M catapult project. I think they are going to love it!!!