What to make for grade 4 boys?

[timjedwards]

M&M launchers:

M&M Catapult for Teaching Quadratics

I wanted to teach parabolas (quadratics) differently in my precalculus classroom. I have always hated just doing it algebraically, since students never see how parabolas are actually used in the world. I have always wanted to use rockets as a way to model a quadratic function, but I didn’t know how to avoid wind and air resistance. That made me think about catapults, but 3D printing catapults for an entire class would take a while. After receiving the glowforge and thinking for a while, I lande…

Can you imagine a room full of boys armed with those? Fantastic!