Build A LEGO Catapult

It’s always right before bed when my son asks to build things like a “castle catapult” out of LEGO®. Terrific, I thought, but time for bed! What do you know, bright and early the next morning, he was ready to make one. We built an awesome LEGO catapult using basic bricks for an easy STEM and physics activity. This is fun homemade catapult just about everyone will want to be able to make! We love cool LEGO activities with just basic LEGO bricks®.

HOW TO MAKE A LEGO CATAPULT FOR KIDS!

SIMPLE CATAPULTS FOR KIDS

Wouldn’t LEGO activities for kids be better with specialty pieces that did this and did that? Maybe, but then it wouldn’t necessarily be easy or be able to be built by most kids with a smaller LEGO® collection!

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: Popsicle Stick Catapult

My son is 6, and he is still learning the ins and outs of different LEGO® pieces. I did not want to build all of this catapult for him. Instead, I prefer to help him troubleshoot his ideas.

I like to ask questions to help him when he gets stuck. Sometimes it’s as simple as redirecting the question back to him to help him come up with his own solution. This is great STEM practice!

Looking for easy to print activities, and inexpensive problem-based challenges?

We have you covered…

Click below to get your quick and easy brick building challenges.

HOW TO MAKE A LEGO CATAPULT

Building any sort of creation with LEGO® is a little bit about trial and error which actually makes it even more fun. What would we learn if everything always worked perfectly the first time? Not much.

You may have the same or different lengths and sizes of bricks, but you can use our idea for building this easy LEGO catapult to get you started. Maybe you will even come up with a better LEGO catapult design, and share it with us.

YOU WILL NEED:

1. LEGO CATAPULT BASE

Large base plate any color
Small plate that is 20 studs long and at least 10 wide {or as close as you can get it!}
2×2, 2×4 bricks
1×2, 1×4, 1×6 bricks
Rubberbands (we only had these large ones handy but you can try other sizes too)

2. LEVER ARM

4×4 plate for the part that holds the marshmallow surrounded by 1×2 bricks to make a holder
(2) 2×12 flats for the lever arm
(2) 2×8 bricks
2×2 brick

At any point you can try to modify this LEGO catapult to fit the bricks you have. For instance you may have (2) 1×8 bricks that you can substitute for the 2×8 bricks. See if it works! Get creative!

HOW TO BUILD A LEGO CATAPULT

We made a single wide wall out of 1×4 and 1×6 bricks across the small plate and attached it to the base plate.

Next, we added supports on the front and back with double wide bricks. Notice that we left a gap of 4 studs in the middle. The majority of the base is three bricks worth high and then one extra layer of 1×8 bricks were added onto the top of each side, still keeping the middle clear.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: Simple LEGO® Zip Line

Check out our launcher to make your own. The red bricks are 2×8.

The bucket part is flush with the end of the red brick. The white plate is not under it.

The 2×2 brick is used to keep the rubber bands in place. This is where you start experimenting with tension with your LEGO catapult.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: LEGO® Rubber Band Car

Initially, we wrapped the rubber bands around the whole base but realized we needed more tension since the bands were quite large. We added an extra row on each side (5) 2×3 bricks high.

YES! THIS LEGO CATAPULT REALLY WORKS!

The cat also loved it. It kept her just as entertained.

Click below to get your quick and easy brick building challenges.

CHECK THE TENSION ON YOUR LEGO CATAPULT

Although it definitely launched our candy, it didn’t go as far as we would have like it too. We needed more tension. We tried adding another row next to the row we had just added, but that didn’t provide the tension we needed {not shown}. Make sure the rubber bands are under not over the 2×2 brick {not like below!}

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: LEGO® Balloon Cars

So we went ahead and added bricks to the initial columns we had added to the side of the plate (as shown above). We decided to even it out with the plate. Oops too much tension! Look what happened! The lever arm shot right out too!

We tried a few variations of bricks before we found the perfect tension for our easy LEGO catapult {might be different for yours!} We ended up having to leave one stud free on either side of the column.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: LEGO® Coding for Kids

That’s it! A cool tension science experiment to go with an awesome LEGO® building activity!