Field Goal!
Click on the link and follow the directions to make our No Glue Catapult.
The No Glue Catapult experiment is located in the Science At Home section of our website
under the “Engineering” category. Then use your catapult to celebrate the Ravens’ with some
football physics.
Collect:
• No Glue Catapult
• Cardboard
• Scissors
• Masking tape
• Ruler
• Craft pom-pom, cotton ball, or ping-pong ball
• Paper
• Pencil
Set the field:
1. Create a goal post using cardboard and scissors.
2. Use masking tape to attach it to one end of a table.
3. With the ruler, place a strip of tape 6”, 12”, 18”, 24”, 30”, and 36” away from the goal posts.
Kick some field goals!
4. To start, set up the no glue catapult behind the 6” marker.
5. Pull back the catapult’s arm and place a pom-pom, cotton ball, or ping-pong ball on the spoon. Aim and release!
6. Try for ten field goals at each distance and use a piece of paper and a pencil to track how many you make at each
distance. How accurately do you think you can kick a field goal at each distance? How do you think your accuracy will
change as you move further from the goal post?
How did you do?
7. When you are finished experimenting, calculate your field goal percentage by dividing the amount of field goals you
made by the amount of field goals you attempted at each distance.
What’s happening?
Forces like gravity and air resistance affect the trajectory, or path, that an object follows when it moves through the air. To
pass through the goal post, the football needs to follow a specific trajectory. Many other factors, like weather and human
error, can also affect a football’s trajectory. In this activity we tested how distance affects the trajectory of the football.
Take it further!
Next time you try this experiment, test for a different variable. What would happen if you used a different material as the
football? What if you had different sizes or models of catapults acting as the kicker? Could you use a fan to model how
wind affects the trajectory of a football?
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