STEM - Catapults

Then the challenge was to modify the catapult to make it better. Aim straight instead of straight up. (Although this was handy so people didn't get pieces flying in their face)

One part I found tricky was adding the rubber band that twisted around all the craft sticks. - Malakai

was trying to get my catapult to aim straight, more horizontal than vertical so I tried lifting the base of the catapult so it was raised off the table. It still went high with a more horizontal momentum. - Akram

I wanted to aim more accurately so I added more sticks to increase the torque of the spring. It ended up with more power to fling in the object in a vertical direction. - Dante

Heating up the plastic spoon I was able to change the shape of the bucket. Now the object flies in a more horizontal arc. - Paul

We had a lot of fun making a catapult. It was even better when we could change it up I added two buckets. - Josh

STEM - Straw Aeroplanes

Today our challenge was to make a straw plane. When we first heard this idea we thought we had to make a plane with wings and a tail and it was tricky to understand how it would fly. Then we watched the video.

I like that this strange shape truly flew. I thought it was completely made up and would fail. - Kingston

Making it from a picture was tricky because we had to guess the size of the two circles. I could see that one was smaller than the other, some people didn't notice this and their planes didn't like flying. - Tawhirimatea

Attaching the straws was easy, but making sure they were spread around the circle was tricky as I didn't want to bend the cardboard circles. - Puna

My plane didn't like flying it kept on breaking. I think my fingers ruined the cello-tape and stopped it sticking. - Iroam