Lesson Plan
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

Trebuchet Toss

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Young engineers work in teams to design and build their own trebuchets according to certain criteria; they must be able to launch a mini marshmallow accurately into a pie tin. Background reading material, a planning sheet for trebuchet...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Secrets of Lost Empires II -- Medieval Siege

For Teachers 5th - 12th
Students design a working working model of a trebuchet and demonstrate the power of a Class 1 lever. They test their models by throwing grapes the greatest distance and raising and lowering bricks.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Medieval Catapults

For Teachers 10th - 12th
Students design and build a working catapult or trebuchet to explore the concepts of force, motion, and distance.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Secrets of Lost Empires II-Pharaoh's Obelisk

For Teachers 5th - 12th
Learners identify and analyze how levers work by raising a brick with a shish kebab skewer. Students present their work, explaining what did and did not work, including illustrations of the lever lift from different angles. Learners...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Fling It

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students investigate the best design using technology. In this science lesson, students construct a freestanding object with specific materials to be able to shoot a ping pong ball and a marshmallow. They have to adjust and...
PPT
Urbana School District

Projectile and Circular Motion, Torque

For Teachers 11th - Higher Ed Standards
Introduce your young scholars to the concepts of circular motion, projectile motion, angular speed, simple harmonic motion, torque, center of mass, centripetal force, and Hooke's Law with a 86-slide presentation. The circular motion...
Lesson Plan
Cornell University

Catapults

For Students 4th - 8th
Ready, aim, fire! Launch to a new level of understanding as scholars build and test their own catapults. Learners explore lever design and how adjusting the fulcrum changes the outcome. 
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

The Catapult

For Teachers 11th - 12th
Students identify the advantages and disadvantages of a catapult as a weapon. In this physics instructional activity, students construct their own catapult. They investigate how changing one variable affects results.
Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Trebuchet Launch

For Teachers 4th - 6th
Students work as engineers to design and test trebuchets (in this case LEGO MINDSTORMS robots) that can launch objects. During the testing stage, they change one variable at a time to study its effect on the outcome of their designs....
Lesson Plan
TryEngineering

Try Engineering: Trebuchet Toss

For Teachers 9th - 10th
A lesson through which learners design and build a small trebuchet from everyday materials. After building and testing their models, students will compete to see whose prototype produces the farthest launch.
Lesson Plan
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College

Serc: The Physics and Engineering of a Trebuchet

For Teachers 6th - 8th
In this simple machines lab students investigate how the trebuchet works using their prior knowledge of simple machines. Students then build a trebuchet and analyze the physics and engineering that goes into building and launching it.
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Effect of Trebuchet Arm Length or Counterweight Mass on Project

For Students 9th - 10th
A trebuchet is a catapult that uses a counterweight to supply the energy for throwing. They were used in the Middle Ages for attacking castle walls. In this project, you build your own model trebuchet and investigate how design changes...
Interactive
PBS

Pbs: Nova: Destroy the Castle

For Students 3rd - 8th
Design your own trebuchet catapult, launch the sandstone balls, and destroy the castle. Decide on the size of your projectiles, where to place your trebuchet, and other factors critical to success.
Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Right on Target: Catapult Game

For Teachers 5th - 6th
Students experience the engineering design process as they design and build accurate and precise catapults using common materials. They use their catapults to participate in a game in which they launch Ping-Pong balls to attempt to hit...
Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Flying T Shirts

For Teachers 9th - 10th
During this engineering design/build project, students investigate many different solutions to a problem. Their design challenge is to find a way to get school t-shirts up into the stands during home sporting events. They follow the...
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: Bomb's Away! A Ping Pong Catapult

For Students 3rd - 8th
With this project you'll send ping pong balls flying through the air with a rubber-band powered catapult. This catapult makes it easy to reproduce the launch angle, and to measure the amount of force applied to the projectile. Armed with...
Lesson Plan
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Launch Into Learning: Catapults!

For Teachers 5th - 6th
Young scholars learn about catapults, including the science and math concepts behind them, as they prepare for the associated activity in which they design, build and test their own catapults. They learn about force, accuracy, precision...
Lesson Plan
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Physics of the Flying T Shirt

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Students are introduced to the physics concepts of air resistance and launch angle as they apply to catapults. This includes the basic concepts of position, velocity and acceleration and their relationships to one another. They use...
Handout
Science Struck

Science Struck: How Does an Ancient and Modern Catapult Work

For Students 4th - 8th
A short explanation of how a catapult works and some examples of them.

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