Yesterday, in conjunction with The Castle, we did a class workshop on catapults with the 7th grade science students at Greencastle Middle School. They were challenging sessions with both physics and mathematics involved, but the kids in the 7th grade science classes on Friday worked through the calculations to solve whether a 150 pound wild … Continue reading Catapulting a Wild Boar
This afternoon we built our first round of table-top catapults. A great turnout and thanks to the parents that helped out. With 15 kids there we ended up with 4 groups building a ‘quick and easy’ wooden catapult… well sort of. Like many projects there were some imperfect/missing parts and since we hadn’t tried the … Continue reading Tabletop Catapult First Build
There seems to be interest in doing a bigger catapult & we do have a lot of 4×4’s – will update this webpage with links & pictures as a plan develops. Bigger Trebuchet design: We’re looking into a combination of one of these: Ten foot tall trebuchet that uses mostly 4×4’s, claims a 6# rock … Continue reading Pumpkin Catapult / Trebuchet
One of the things we always look forward to in the summer and fall is Main Street Greencastle‘s First Friday. With our location in downtown Greencastle on Franklin Street, we have a great location to have a hands-on, youth-oriented, ‘making’ project outside for people attending the monthly event. It’s also an opportunity for folks to … Continue reading First Friday Season
We often get questions about when to visit Castlemakers; the best place to start is our events webpage. You can drop in during Open Shop or also attend one of the events listed. For people not familiar with makerspaces, they may not realize everything going on. For example, limited ‘retail’ hours (what we and other … Continue reading What happens at Castlemakers
Last month we were asked to do a STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) related activity with the Summer Enrichment Program at Gobin Memorial Church. It’s a great program which provides positive interactions for at-risk kids in Putnam County. Their goal was exposing these elementary aged kids to a STEM activity; I also wanted them to … Continue reading Summer Enrichment Program
At our first meeting of 2015, the kids brought in things they got or made over the holidays. There was a pretty wide range – from Ryan’s “Cool Circuits” and Boyd’s Tinker Crate (creative building/experimental kit in-a-box that comes monthly) to an owl pellet (no, Eli didn’t ‘make’ that!). Very encouraging seeing all of the … Continue reading January Meeting Update
This weekend in West Lafayette is the Feast of the Hunters’ Moon festival, which recreates what it was like in the 18th century at Fort Ouiatenon in Indiana. This was my first visit to the event and I was surprised with the how much effort people went into recreating the life at a trading post/military … Continue reading Making at Feast of the Hunters’ Moon
Thanks to all that made it Monday night at Crown Equipment to the meeting on creating a Putnam County maker group for youth. Seemed like a fairly good turnout for a first time meeting. We had 21 people there by my count – enough to get something going! We briefly covered what the maker movement … Continue reading Youth Maker Group Meeting
Some of our current & favorite projects: Putt PUTnam County – Castlemakers annual miniature golf course building competition. 3D Printers Listening to the International Space Station Satellite Tracker Slow Scan TV (SSTV) Scanning Turntable Photogrammetry Robotics Hydroponics Castlemakers Kids Water Balloon Launchers Catapult/ Trebuchet Shovercraft or shove-able hovercraft, our first youth build project!!