the workshop today we’re going to be
building a desktop siege weapon that you
can make with some very low cost and
common supplies the desktop catapult
that we’re going to build only takes a
few rubber bands eight popsicle sticks a
binder clip and a box of Tic Tacs to
start off let’s grab the binder clip two
of our popsicle sticks and two rubber
bands we need to attach our first
popsicle stick to one of the arms on our
binder clip we want it to fit between
the swinging arm and the rest of the
clip with that in place stretch the
rubber band over twist it and wrap it
around we’ll just do this over and over
until our rubber band is securely
holding our popsicle stick in place if
it’s too hard to stretch it over the top
of the popsicle stick because you’re
running out of rubber band try
stretching it over the clip it’s shorter
and easier
there we go that seems pretty well
attached it does have a little bit of
flexibility and play in it but that
shouldn’t cause a problem now we want to
attach our second popsicle stick on to
our first popsicle stick our first
popsicle stick has attached to one side
of the metal clip and we want to attach
our second popsicle stick going that
same direction in front of the other
popsicle stick that way we have sort of
a tiered effect clip first popsicle
stick second popsicle stick we don’t
want to attach it so it goes down and
then back up we want it to be constantly
moving down the step let’s overlap our
popsicle sticks by about one inch and
then use our second rubber band to
secure those together we have the rubber
band wrapped around the bottom of the
second stick leaving a little bit of an
overlap without rubber bands wrapped
around it that will come into play later
now let’s set this piece aside and grab
our box of Tic Tacs get an empty
container and empty all of the candy out
into it even if you don’t want to eat it
we have a use for it our next step is to
completely remove the white lid from the
rest of the container you may find it
easier to remove if you take a small
knife and slice through the sticker
that’s holding it on now that we have
the top removed we also want to remove
this latch portion from the lid you
could probably get it off by just
bending it back and forth and twisting a
lot but I’m gonna use the knife again to
just slit underneath the him now let’s
grab two more popsicle sticks and two
more rubber bands we want to secure
these popsicle sticks to the side of our
candy
with a little bit of extra space on
either end using the same processes
before take the robe and wrap it around
[Music]
once again grab two more popsicle sticks
and two more rubber bands these two
popsicle sticks will attach to the
sticks already connected to our tic-tac
container and an angle about like this
by wrapping the rubber band tightly
around them it should hold them right in
place to try and get the angle to stay
open instead of just having the popsicle
stick swing closed it can also help if
you make sure to wrap the rubber band
around the popsicle sticks along the top
and bottom you can see that the popsicle
stick is now being held at a nice angle
and while it does have flexibility and
movement it is being held in the right
spot that’s one attached do the same
thing for the other side there we go
we’ve got both of these arms pretty well
attached this time we now need two more
sticks and four more rubber bands so
down in this corner we want the ends of
the popsicle sticks to meet but up here
we want the end of one stick to meet
lower down on the middle of the other
at this point since we are closing off
this triangle we won’t be able to wrap
rubber bands that go around the top and
bottom portions of where we’re linking
but because the other two points are
already holding it even if we just have
it secured in one direction it should
have a stable angle there’s one side now
we need to attach the stick on the other
at this point you can see the shape that
our base is taking we now have two
pieces we have a base and we have the
swinging arm of our catapult it’s time
to put them together
stretch the binder clip wide enough
apart that it can fit all the way over
the bottom of our tic-tac case make sure
you use the bottom of the case and not
the top as the top will be too squishy
to hold it on don’t worry if the mouth
is starting to collapse a little bit it
shouldn’t affect the functionality let’s
be sure to have the swinging arm all the
way down so it’s lying across the body
of the tic-tac container we don’t want
to have it facing this direction where
we won’t be able to use our catapult we
now want to take the lid of our tic-tac
container and another rubber band and
secure that in between the upright posts
now get the general idea of how this
catapult is going to work so there’s two
more steps that we need to take one is
to add a little spot where we can put
our ammunition up on the top and the
second is to give it some spring because
at this point nothing is making it fire
the small top tab that we pulled off of
the lid from our tic-tac container will
work very well for holding our
and now we need to take one final rubber
band to give our catapult some launch
power this rubber band will fit in the
gap between the two sticks we connected
together earlier now let’s place this
rubber band over the top of our tic-tac
container and use one final rubber band
to hold it in place so it doesn’t come
off when our catapult launches and with
that our catapult is complete and ready
for testing for ammunition of course I
suggest some tic tacs this little
catapult made from popsicle sticks a tic
tac box a binder clip and some rubber
bands works really well but I want to
try upgrading it to make it a little
more durable and a little classier
looking so we’re gonna build one more
again using eight popsicle sticks a
binder clip and a tic tac box but we’ve
got some hardware this time that should
hold it together in a more permanent
fashion we’ve got six machine screws and
the nuts that fit onto them as well as
two little shelf pins that we’ll use to
secure all of the pieces together
we’ll also probably try staining the
popsicle sticks just to make it look
like it’s a nicer quality of wood I’ll
also use a little bit of tape in some
spots partly for decoration and partly
for structural support all the popsicle
sticks will be held together either by
the machine screws or by these low pins
which means most of our popsicle sticks
need to have holes drilled into them
let’s measure and drill all of those
holes and then start assembling we can
use the connecting points on our first
catapult as a measuring guide for the
sticks on the second one at this point
on this point we’ll use the machine
screws to hook it together here on the
back however we’re going to use the
shelf support as a removable pin that
means near the front of this bottom
piece we need a small hole drilled for
the machine screws in near the back
we’ll need a larger hole for the shelf
supports for this popsicle stick we’ll
need a large hole down at the bottom and
a small hole at the top and finally for
the third support we’ll need three small
holes one down at the bottom one for the
second support and a third one we’ll
attach the lid of our Tic Tac container
now let’s copy those three sticks onto
three more for the other side of the
we’ll start by taking a drill bit that’s
the same size as our machine screw and
drilling all of the small holes a quick
note if you’re drilling holes into
popsicle sticks
you want to use extremely light pressure
as you go through because they can split
very easily pressing down hard on the
we’ll also need two of the small holes
drilled into the lid of our tic-tac box
so let’s take off the top empty it out
and drill those holes
[Music]
[Applause]
now let’s switch for a larger drill bit
to drill up the larger holes for the
shelf support pegs we now have six
popsicle sticks that have holes drilled
into them and two that do not have any
holes which will become our swinging arm
now before we start assembly we want to
stain all these popsicle sticks so they
look like a nicer quality of wood and
before we stain them let’s just hit them
really quick with some high grit
sandpaper to smooth them out now with
all of our popsicle sticks stained and
nice darker wooden color let’s start
attaching the swing arm to the binder
clip the same way we did before except
this time we’ll use duct tape to attach
we’ll also use a small portion of tape
to attach the top tab onto our swing arm
and finally we’ll use some tape to
attach the two bottom supports to our
tic-tac container with that taping done
we can now start using our hardware to
we have machine screws and nuts
connecting these two joints and now
we’ll use our shelf support pins to
connect these two at the bottom now
before we attach our lid into this
support on top we need to make sure that
our swing arm is already attached
because otherwise we won’t be able to
move it past there and our catapult
won’t work to fit our binder clip onto
the bottom of the tic-tac container
swing the arm across now we use the last
two machine screws and nuts to secure
this in place we’re going to use a
rubber band to power our catapult the
same way we did before we use a single
strip of tape going around the lid of
our tic-tac container to hold the rubber
with that this catapult is almost
complete but there’s one more little
modification that I want to make these
pins attached to the bottom are there
because we can now remove them and have
the whole catapult collapse down to a
smaller size this can make our catapult
a little bit easier to store of course
we want to make sure that we don’t lose
track of these pins and it would be nice
to have a way to carry around some ammo
so using just a few strips of tape let’s
make a cover that goes over the opening
of our tic-tac box that can hold both
these pieces and some ammunition inside
I’ll make it so it attaches to the
bottom has a non sticky portion in the
middle and then a small tab at the top
a little bit of ammo storage and a place
where we can put our hardware beautiful
fires off like a dream
[Music]
two different ways to build a desktop
catapult using popsicle sticks a tic-tac
container a binder clip and either some
rubber bands or some machine screws
these are both very fun to build they
don’t take very long and before you know
it you can be shooting tic tacs at your
coworkers
all right you probably should never
shoot these at people they could hit
someone in the eye or just hurt and you
don’t want to do that maybe you can find
a softer ammunition that you wouldn’t
have to worry about whether or not it’s
gonna hit anyone but these are a lot of
fun they’ve got a great range they can
shoot about forty feet which is pretty
impressive for a little tic tac if you
end up building either of these
catapults take a picture and tag us on
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safe and see you tomorrow [Music]