Giggles and more giggles because there’s noting better then flying eggs or at least the plastic Easter egg kind. You probably have a gazillion of these by now and every year you still feel compelled to buy a few more. Well here’s a super fun Easter catapult STEM activity that will have everyone laughing and learning at the same time. Holiday STEM is a favorite.

EASTER CATAPULT STEM ACTIVITY FOR KIDS

STEM and Easter! A perfect match because here we love to pair the holidays with cool but easy to make STEM activities! So this year, we have added an Easter catapult to our list of Easter science and STEM activities you can try with the kids.

This STEM projects has a several ways you can play and learn and also includes a free printable page if you want to include it in your lesson plan leading up to Easter.

If you want to learn more about STEM, check out our huge resource and informational articles on STEM for different age levels!

 

SUPPLIES FOR THE EASTER CATAPULT STEM ACTIVITY

10 Jumbo Popsicle Sticks {plus more for experimenting}

Rubber Bands

Spoon

Plastic Eggs {various sizes}

MAKE AN EASETR EGG CATAPULT

You can reference our original POPSICLE STICK CATAPULT HERE.

Stack 8 jumbo popsicle sticks.

Insert one jumbo popsicle stick into the stack resting on the top of the bottom last stick. Just a small portion of the stick should be through. This step can be done after the next if you wish,

Tightly wind rubber bands around either end of your stack.

Place the last jumbo popsicle stick on top of the stack in the same position as the stick that you have already inserted.

Wind a rubber band around the small ends as seen below. This rubber band should not be super tight. With other catapults we have made little notches in the two popsicle sticks so the rubber band stays put, but this works fine too.

Very quick and simple. You can add a spoon in a couple different ways or none at all as seen below.

This is a great way to experiment with design and how it effects the motion of the catapult.

WANT MORE WAYS TO LAUNCH EGGS? Plastic Egg Launchers Kids Can Make!

HERE’S HOW TO MAKE IT AN AWESOME STEM ACTIVITY!

You have built a really simple and cool Easter catapult, so what’s the STEM behind it?

A catapult is a simple machine, and if you guessed the lever, you are correct! What are the parts of a lever? A lever has an arm {popsicle sticks}, fulcrum or what the arm balances on {more popsicle sticks}, and the load which is the object to launch.

WHAT’S THE SCIENCE?

Newton’s 3 Laws of Motion: An object at rest stays at rest, until a force is applied, and an object will stay in motion until something creates an imbalance in the motion. Every action causes a reaction.

When you pull down the lever arm all that potential energy gets stored up! Release it and that potential energy gradually changes over to kinetic energy. Gravity also does its part as it pulls the egg back down to the ground.

If you want to delve deeper into Newton’s Laws, check out the information here.

MAKE PREDICTIONS

We decided to first test different size plastic eggs to see which of our loads would fly the farthest. This is the perfect opportunity to make a few predictions and create a hypothesis. Print out our worksheet below by downloading it to your desktop.

Small, medium, and large eggs. Which one will go the farthest? This Easter catapult STEM activity gives you several ways to use all the pillars of a good STEM project. Grab a measuring tape and record data on each egg to draw your conclusions.

My son predicted the largest egg would travel farther, but it didn’t. It’s size held it back and it more or less pooped up into the air and fell down not too far away from the catapult.

TINKER WITH DESIGN

Bring out those engineering skills! Sure you just made a catapult, but can you make it better? My son didn’t care for the lack of momentum this catapult produced, so he decided to tinker with the spoon placement. I assisted with some of the rubber band action.

TRIAL 1: Spoon head past popsicle stick. This position did not create enough force unless you pulled it back to the edge of the table, but it still didn’t have a great launch. Was the lever arm too long?

TRIAL 2: No spoon just the rubber bands. Good launch with this one, but you could only sit half an egg on it.

TRIAL 3: Attach the spoon so it’s the same length of the lever arm, and you have the best of both! Winner, winner chicken dinner.

CHECK OUT: 25+ Easy STEM Activities Kids Will LOVE!

This Easter catapult STEM activity is super simple to bring out any day for any holiday or season. If you don’t mind flinging candy around a bit, you can replace the eggs with jelly beans, peeps, chocolate eggs, or what ever else you can think of. Candy science can get a little messy but always fun.

Next time you are at the dollar store or the craft store pick up what you need to make these super simple catapults out of jumbo popsicle sticks or check out how we built one from pencils, LEGO, marshmallows, or a paper tube roll.

EASTER CATAPULT STEM ACTIVITY AND CHALLENGE FOR KIDS

Click ont he photos below for more awesome ways to enjoy Easter STEM this season.