Lofty goals await catapult-building Rock Falls Middle School students

ROCK FALLS – For the past four and half weeks students at Rock Falls Middle School have been focusing their energy – both potential and kinetic – in an effort to built the most efficient and accurate catapult.

The project falls under the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) approach to learning. Along with the types of energy, students study air resistance, gravity and launch angles along with different types of the devices.

The students sketched, designed, built, tested, decorated and decided on a theme for their project. On Thursday, Dec. 8, 2022, the first of two competitors were held. This one was to test accuracy.

Divided into grades, the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders each went head-to-head. The winners from each class then competed against one another at the end of the session for an overall champion.

After all is said and done, the competition doesn’t affect the student’s grade. It was an exercise in working as a group and figuring out problems. But, the overall winner did get a pizza party.

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Lonny Briggs (left) gathers up the pumpkins fired from the catapult of his team Logan Stange (middle) and Damon Southard. Each group had three pumpkins to fire as many times in one minute. (Alex T. Paschal — apaschal@shawmedia.com/credit)