Rubber band cannons

young boy making a cannon from rubber bands
© RI

About

Make a ‘cannon’ using elastic bands, a soft drink bottle and a crisps tin and explore how things fired from it move through the air.

Experiment with changes you can make to your cannon to see what affects how something fired from it behaves.

Learn about conservation of energy and how the mass, initial angle of launch and initial speed of an object affect the motion of a projectile.

Teacher notes

This activity comes with supporting notes that you can download, you can find them on the RI’s website.

Link

Rubber band cannons

From

Royal Institute