Your students will have seen films with trebuchets in them; used throughout the Middle Ages (and of course Middle Earth!) but did they ever think they would build one for themselves?

We set the seemingly impossible challenge of making strong cranes able to lift and lower weights while slewing round from one place to another, using apparently unsuitable materials, with too little time.

Do you think your students can make a machine in a day to enable them to float around the classroom? Not only will your students make a working hovercraft, they will also ride and race them against each other.

The teams draw lots to decide what kind of machine they will make, either, trebuchets, ballistas or catapults. These are seriously impressive machines that can be up to 3m tall and can throw over 100m!