LAKE STEVENS — Marshmallows sailed through the air, cups clattered to the ground and young engineers tested the hurling power of spoons, sticks and rubber bands.
None of the masterminds were older than 13, and “marshmallow engineer” isn’t a permanent job title. For the Ultimate Marshmallow Battle Catapult Challenge, though, it was a perfect description.
Lake Stevens librarians hosted the event Friday afternoon at the community center near City Hall. The activity is part of Sno-Isle Libraries’ educational outreach efforts to give kids interactive learning opportunities outside of school hours.
Children between 9 and 13 years old worked in pairs — some with each other and some with their parents — to build catapults that could fire marshmallow at a fortress of stacked paper cups and at a large poster of a dragon. They crafted their weapons out of popsicle sticks, wooden skewers, drinking straws and rubber bands.
Coordinator Jillian Coats instructed the teams to give their catapults suitably intimidating names, citing historical examples like “Warwolf” and “Bad Neighbor.”
Paige Wallace and Kaylie Jansen, both 10, dubbed their catapults “The Marshmallow Bully” and “The Paige-inator.” They decorated them with pink markers before launching marshmallows at the stack of blue and green paper cups.
Paige and Kaylie agreed on their favorite parts of the challenge: they got to work together, and they got to be creative. They also agreed on their least favorite part.
“It’s when you build it and it doesn’t work and you have to undo it and build it again,” Paige said.
Josiah Moore, 9, could relate to the frustration. He aptly named his creation “Broken Catapult But Still Works.”
“I just made that up right now,” he proudly told his mom, Carrie Driscoll.
Driscoll homeschools her son and relies on the library for some of his lessons.
“I love these hands-on programs where they learn something and then do it,” she said. “The library’s really beefed up the programs these last few years.”
Before the catapult construction began, librarians explained the historical use of catapults and talked about potential and kinetic energy. The afternoon event taught history, science, engineering and creativity, Coats said, all topped off with flying marshmallows.
“That’s the goal, to get kids to start thinking about how these things work together,” she said. “And it’s good to have a bit of artistry, too.”
Scott Stroble and son Gabe, 12, discussed tension and torque as they experimented with wrapping rubber bands around their catapult base. Gabe’s a frequent visitor to the library, where he likes the magic shows, Lego building and summer reading challenges.
“I like science and history,” he said. “And I try hard at math. It’s my biggest problem, but I still try hard.”
Designing a catapult took a little bit of everything, he said.
Similar programs have been done at other Sno-Isle libraries, but this is the first marshmallow battle in Lake Stevens, library manager Miriam Driss said.
Librarians are coming up with a variety of activities and classes to attract kids at all ages. Many of them are geared toward crossing the boundaries between subjects like math, art, science and music. The lessons take the form of competitions, games or shows.
“We’ve been doing a lot of programming for kids who are a little too old for storytime but aren’t quite in the teen area yet,” Coats said.
Other Spring Break library activities in the next couple weeks include: a “Bubbleology” class explaining and showing how bubbles of all shapes and sizes are formed; a presentation and demonstration on air pressure called “Up, Up and Away with Mad Science”; a hands-on lesson in African drumming; and a life-sized Candyland board game where the room is the gameboard and participants are the pieces.
Kari Bray: 425-339-3439; kbray@heraldnet.com
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