1. Walk-In
Take out notebook, folder, pencil box.
Write the date and this title: Stored Mechanical Energy and Catapults

2. How is energy transferred?
Catapults
How is energy transferred?

3. An object has stored mechanical energy (a kind of PE) when it stores energy because of a push or a pull.

4. Examples of Stored Mechanical Energy
Rubber band

5. Slingshot

6. Spring

7. Paddle Ball

8. What is a catapult?
A catapult has a place to put something you want to launch (we’ll call it the load), and uses the tension in the arm of the catapult to fling the load through the air!
Example: a slingshot

9. Catapults – write this down!
Catapults change STORED MECHANICAL ENERGY to KINETIC ENERGY when the force launches a load.

10. Goal: Start thinking about how energy is transferred from one form to another!
Follow the directions on your lab sheet. Please DO NOT WRITE ON IT!
Work together to create a catapult. Test how it launches at various angles of the arm.
Clean up.
Answer the questions from the sheet in your notebook.

11. What will we launch?
When your group has designed a catapult, you may try launching:
Pieces of sponge
Pompoms
Small crumpled paper balls
NOTHING ELSE!

12. Launching Guidelines
Set your catapult at the edge of the table pointing toward either the screen (groups 1, 3, 5, 7) or the back counter (groups 2, 4, 6, 8).
DO NOT AIM THE LOAD AT ANYONE.
Pick up the load after it is launched and lands on the floor.

13. Games with Launching
Find another group to challenge to some catapult games! Place each catapult at the edge of the table and try…
1. Place a basket several feet away from the catapult. Each player takes ten turns. The person who launches a cotton ball the most times into the shoebox wins.
2. Same as game one, except this time the person who makes it into the basket the most times in a row wins.
3. Set a guiding tube on its side, to form a tower. The first person to knock it down with a hit from the catapult wins.