Amy Dowden is a teacher who loves hands-on experiential learning. Her students were recently tasked with a challenge: construct a catapult, capable of reliably launching a tennis ball over a one meter tall barrier to hit a soda can pyramid 1.5 meters away from the barrier. No mean feat! There were other requirements also: the launcher must be mechanical, built from everyday household objects, the launch arm must not be over a certain size, and there must be a trigger mechanism.
Working in teams, the students spent 6 days designing, planning, refining, and testing their projectile devices. The real fun came on test day - check out this video of Katie, Anna, and Theresa hitting the target perfectly the first time:
Working in teams, the students spent 6 days designing, planning, refining, and testing their projectile devices. The real fun came on test day - check out this video of Katie, Anna, and Theresa hitting the target perfectly the first time: