Pardon the absence, but I’ve been horribly sick for the past two weeks, I had the plague. Alright, today I’m going to show you how to
| make a couple different kinds of mini catapults–first, a small, simple little catapult that you can make with a bit of stuff (popsicle sticks, rubber bands, spoon, etc.) that you can find around the house or pick up at the grocery store, and then I’ll show you how to make a proper torsion catapult (the kind that they actually used in the middle ages–they didn’t |
have rubber bands then, you know 😉 ) that’ll require just a little bit of handiwork (cutting wood, drilling, etc.) but it’s still pretty easy to put together. Most of the tools and materials that you’ll need can be found around the home and/or office and are very inexpensive. Here we go.
How to make a desktop catapult out of popsicle sticks and rubber bands
First of all, here’s a list of what you’ll need:
- 3 small binder clips (19mm)
- 1 Plastic Spoon
- 4 Wooden Clothespins
- 9 Rubber Bands
- 9 Popsicle Sticks
- Tape (scotch, electric, whatever you’ve got should work fine)
Right, now that you’ve got all that stuff, here’s what to do:
Here’s the book that they refer to in that video if you’re amongst the majority of office workers and have nothing else better to do with most of your day 
: Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction: Build Implements of Spitball Warfare
How to build a mini torsion catapult
This one’s much nicer, plus it’s historically accurate since it’s a torsion catapult which is the type of design that was used for medieval catapults. A power drill isn’t required, but it is recommended. Here’s what to do:
Added Bonus: REALLY Simple Catapult Made from Office Supplies
Just saw this and thought I’d throw it in here for you guys who are browsing this at work and can’t be bother to go out and buy supplies but you’d still like to be able to harass your coworkers with some medieval weaponry–all you need is a binder clip, rubber band, pen, and a water/soda bottle cap:
Additional Resources and Further Reading
If you’re really into this sort of stuff and would like to learn how to make various potato guns and tennis ball mortars and such, check out a book called Backyard Ballistics
If you’d be interested in building a much larger backyard catapult that you can use to launch tennis balls and full soda cans a couple hundred yards, then have a look at my article on how to build a French counterweight trebuchet.
You have got to check out the Catapult page over at StormTheCastle.com, they’ve got all sorts of various homemade siege devices and information about this sort of stuff.
Here’s a really cool article over at instructables.com on how to build an office supplies trebuchet.