Experimath - Experiment 19

Syllabus links

Key Stage 2 (age 7 to 11)

Can you make your own bow and arrow, and find your average score in archery shooting?

This experiment gives children an opportunity to calculate average scores.

The child will learn how to make a bow and arrow.

9 lolly sticks

string or wool

sticky tape

coloured pencils

a pair of scissors

some paper

Gather all the materials needed.

You may use other materials if you don't have any lolly sticks.

To make your bow as realistic as possible, use string and avoid elastic materials like rubber bands.

For this bow, you will need nine lolly sticks.

Mark the centre of each stick.
Group the sticks as shown below.
Using your sticky tapes, bind the first lolly stick to the two sticks on its right with their ends right on the centre marks.

You could use string instead of sticky tape but it can be a bit difficult to tie tightly.
Continue the previous step until the last stick.

Make sure that the thicker group goes below the thinner ones as shown below.
Create notches for your string in both ends of the bow.
Tie the string on both ends of the bow.
Use more tape (or string) to cover the exposed openings of the bow.

This will prevent fingers from getting pinched by those openings when using the bow later.
Create your arrows and archery target using the remaining materials.
Depending on your shooting skills and power of your bow, adjust the distance of your target.

For beginners, 3 metres is a good starting distance.

Never point a loaded bow to anyone or anything except your target.

Even a small bow like this could hurt someone.

Shoot your arrows 24 times. Record your score for every shot.

The mean is calculated by adding together the scores and dividing by the number of scores (24).
The median is calculated by sorting the scores, adding together the two middle ones and dividing by two.
The mode is the most common score from the list.
Putting a fletching/flights on the arrow is critical.

If the string is too thin you can either wrap its centre with sticky tape or put notches in the back ends of the arrows.
Using more lolly sticks to make the bow longer and stronger can help enhance its range.

Or by using a different material that can store more energy without breaking.

You could try adding more lolly sticks to see how this affects the range you can shoot.

The child could draw a graph of distance against number of lolly sticks.

As before, it is important to take the average of many attempts in order to get an accurate measure.

Experiment 19 v6