Best Popsicle Stick Catapult For STEM

Make a Catapult with Popsicle Sticks

These Popsicle stick catapults make a great STEM activity! We used technology to assist us in building our simple catapults. We used math to determine the supplies needed to build the catapults. We used our engineering skills actually to build the popsicle stick catapults. We used science to test how far the catapults flung our chosen items.

Which Popsicle stick catapult fired the farthest? Great start to finish STEM activity with simple physics science play at the end!

More Catapult Designs to Try!

Explore how catapults work with other design ideas, including:

• LEGO catapult
• Jumbo marshmallow catapult.
• Pencil catapult with a handful of school supplies).
• Spoon catapult with excellent firing power!

How Do Catapults Work?

This is a great simple physics activity for kids of multiple ages. What is there to explore that has to do with physics? Let’s start with energy including elastic potential energy. You can also learn about projectile motion.

Newton’s 3 Laws of Motion state that an object at rest stays at rest until a force is applied, and an object stays in motion until something creates an imbalance. 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 object back down to the ground.

To delve deeper into Newton’s Laws, check out the information here.

You can talk about stored energy or potential elastic energy as you pull back on the Popsicle stick, bending it. When you release the stick, all that potential energy is released into energy in motion producing the projectile motion.

A catapult is a simple machine that has been around for ages. Have your kids dig up a little history and research when the first catapults were invented and used! Hint; check out the 17th century!

Popsicle Stick Catapult Supplies

• 10 Jumbo Popsicle Sticks
• Rubber Bands 
• Firing Power (marshmallows, pompoms, pencil top erasers)
• Plastic Spoon (optional
• Bottle Cap
• Sticky Dots

How to Build a Popsicle Stick Catapult

Note: You will also love making these pompom shooters or poppers too!

STEP 1:  Make predictions. Which object will fly the farthest?  Why do you think one will fly farther than the other?

STEP 2:  Hand out supplies to each individual or in small groups, and build a Popsicle stick catapult following the instructions below.

Read more about the science behind the catapult and simple ways to create a catapult science experiment below!

STEP 3:  Test and measure each item’s length when flung from the catapult—record results.

This is a simple and quick Popsicle stick catapult using just two supplies. The best part is that you can also grab the supplies at the dollar store! Check out how we stock our dollar store engineering kit.

Adult supervision and assistance is highly recommended when using scissors.

STEP 4: You will want to use a pair of scissors to make two v notches on either side of two jumbo craft or Popsicle sticks (in the same place on both sticks). Use the photo below as a guide for where to make your notches.

Adults: This is a great step to prep ahead of time if you are making these popsicle stick catapults with a large group of kids.

Once you have made your notches in two of the sticks, set them aside!

STEP 5: Take the remaining 8 craft sticks and stack them one on top of the other. Wind a rubber band tightly around each end of the stack.

STEP 6: Go ahead and push one of the notched sticks through the stack under the top stick of the stack. Make sure to watch the video again to see this done.

At this point flip your partially made popsicle stick catapult over so that the stick you just pushed in is on the bottom of the stack.

STEP 7: Lay the second notched stick on top of the stack and secure the two popsicle sticks together with a rubber band as shown below. The V notches that you cut help to keep the rubber band in place.

Create more leverage with your catapult by pushing the stack of popsicle sticks towards the notched ends connected by the rubber band. Read about the science behind this below!

STEP 8: Attach a bottle cap to the popsicle stick with sticky dots or strong adhesive. Get ready to fire away!

VARIATION: You can also make a popsicle stick catapult with a spoon which is especially great for holding objects like plastic Easter eggs or fake eyeballs.

Tips to Try it at Home or in the Classroom

• Simple and cheap materials (dollar store friendly)!
• Quick to build with many age groups! Set up premade bags for younger kids or larger groups
• Easy to differentiate for different levels! Use the free printable to add to a science journal.
• Kids can work in groups! Build teamwork!
• Incorporate math by measuring the distance traveled.
• Incorporate math by recording time in the air with stopwatches.
• Incorporate the scientific method, make predictions, build models, test and record results, and conclude! Use our questions for reflection!
• Incorporate the engineering design process.

Turn it into a Science Experiment

You can easily set up an experiment by testing different weighted items to see which ones fly farther. Adding a measuring tape encourages simple math concepts that my 2nd grader is just really starting to explore.

Or you can build 2-3 different catapults and see which one works better or if one works better with different objects.

Always start out asking a question to come up with a hypothesis. Which item will go farther? I think xyz will go farther. Why? Have fun setting up a catapult to test the theory! Can you design a different catapult using the same materials?

This is an awesome way to reinforce what the child is learning with a super fun activity. Additionally, you can encourage older kids to record the data from measuring all the launches.

Have your kids fire each material {such as a candy pumpkin, plastic spider or eyeball} 10 times and record the distance each time. What kinds of conclusions can they draw from the information gathered? Which item worked the best? Which item didn’t work well at all?

You can also test out the number of popsicle sticks used in the stack to create the tension need to launch the catapult. How about 6 or 10? What are the differences when tested?

Catapult Building for Middle School

Older kiddos will benefit greatly from brainstorming, planning, creating, testing, and improving!

The goal/problem: Launch a ping pong ball from one end of the table to another while clearing the LEGO box!

His first design would not launch more than a foot on average. Of course, we took multiple test runs and wrote down the distances! His improvements launched the ball way off the table and more than 72″. Is it Pinterest-worthy? Not really. However, it’s the work of a junior engineer who solves a problem!