Mini Catapult for Kids

Catapults were invented by Greeks and used during wars. Weapons of mass destruction back then.

Gun powder was not yet invented and most of the weapons were mechanical in nature. These are good thing to teach and play with kids. The power of a mini version is good to play with and not break anything.

This Instructable will describe how is make it with things that should be available easily

Material

• Wood 6.5 Feet long
• Very Thin Nails
• Thick Cotton Thread
• 2 Wooden Dowels
• Brown, Green Color
• Empty beverage can

Tools

• Hammer
• Hex-saw
• Scale
• Marker/pencil
• Drilling machine

Cut the wood as per below

Base

• Two pieces of 8 Inch in length
• 3 pieces of 4 inch length

Side

• Two pieces of 5 inch
• One piece of 6.25 inch

Catapult bar

• 7.25 Inches

Top Bar

• 1 piece of 3.5 Inch

Front side top Bar

• 1 piece of 6.25 inch

Assembly

• Fix only two 4 inch wooden bars to the base 8 inch wooden bars ( Only middle and back)
• The front side base bar will be fixed at an angle and has to be fixed with
• Fix it like the I shape ( 4 Inch, 6.25 and 3.5 inch)
• Cut the side bars as shown and fix to the base
• Fix the "I" shaped piece to build the structure
• on the Catapult bar carve out a groove to hold thread
• Use aluminum can button to make a payload holder

Use thick cotton thread and wind it across the catapult bar through the side holes and around the wooden dowels. You need to twist the dowels at the same time in forward direction

If the thread is loose, you may have to twist it several times I kept the thread just right and could do only 10 twists, before the thread snapped

Test the the catapult is working

Paint the Catapult with brown color and the bar with Green

Use the thick cotton thread to hold the joins( Not needed since we used Nails) But looks good , you may choose any color that you like. The colors for mine was chosen by my son

As safety I had filed the sharp edges of aluminium holder and cover it with paper tape. to avoid any cuts during play

I like the table tennis ball to be most effective

Also instead of single strain of thread i used 4 strains to strengthen the tension