Wooden Catapult Kit - Medieval Toy Catapult Wood - STEM Catapult kit – snap Together Desk Sized Catapult Toy – boy Toys – Science kit – STEM Toys – Educational Toy - Birthday Gift

My 9-year old son loves this toy! I did most of the assembly. This is probably too hard to assemble well for a child younger than 12 or so (in my opinion.)The parts are laser cut (the laser does burn the wood, hence the slight wood smoke smell) and very accurate. Some of them fit so pefectly that glue might have been optional (we glued all joints). The assembly of the wooden parts is really very simple. My only advice would be: Lightly sand the laser-cut surfaces if they are going to be gluing surfaces. The burnt wood remnants interfere with good bonding. Sand on a flat, hard surface to maintain a flat surface on the part. Use sandpaper around 180-grit. Don't sand too much. (All that said, it probably glues fine without sanding.)The only tricky part was inserting the spring arms into the string loops (torsion springs) and winding up the torsion springs. Once some tension was on the sytem, it was no problem; but getting started required a third hand (from my son). Balancing the arms top-bottom and between the two arms was simple.This is really quite historically accurate. The big innovation that the Greeks developed (and Romans further developed) was using torsion of bundles of fiber (sinew or hair) to power the swinging arms of what is essentially a crossbow. Much more portable, adjustable, and effective than a single, large bow member. This was artillery for a long time. The Greeks also developed bows made of compound materials (bone on the compression face, sinew on the tension face).Cautions: It shoots pretty hard! Make sure your child has some safety training before letting them loose with it! I tell mine to treat it just like a gun -- it IS a gun.Full disclosure: I am a mechanical engineer and wood worker. However, no special strength in either of these areas is required to assemble this toy.

First of all this was so easy to build. The wood quality is sturdy and very sleek. AND IT SMELLS INCREDIBLE! Like cloves! I’m not sure if it’s supposed to smell good but my kids had a blast with it and I enjoyed the scents it gave off in my house! Catapult away!

I bought this for my son who is 5 as a project for the two of us to work on together. It was a wonderful time and the kit works great. However it doesn't fire as far as the description says it will which isn't a real big deal. The only drawback was the winding of the ropes to create the tension to fire the rounds. this is a very challenging task that took several attempts to get close to right. The directions are very clear as to which direction to twist but there was no info on getting them to have the same tension. If one rope is just a smidge longer then the arms are at different angles and it seems to throw the rounds a little off. Overall it is a great model with great instructions and a lot of fun to build and shoot.

These were nice models when you get them together, but the combination of small pieces, easily breakable material, and very bad smelling material, I would not recommend for purchase. These models were purchased for my small engineering club at school. These are 6-8th grade students.The instructions are pretty much all picture based, which works for 2 of the 3 models. However, the ballista has some more complicated methods of tying off the string. Not following these instructions perfectly makes the ballista inoperable.

My 9 year old son and I found this kit to be excellent -- very strong and functional -- but you should be aware of what you are getting into. You cannot build the model in one quick session and expect it to hold up. The parts are quite accurate, but they don't just "snap together" like so many things do these days. We love LEGO, too, but this is just DIFFERENT!You should use white glue and carefully align and clamp each assembly, letting it dry thoroughly, especially the first group of pieces that make up the main body and center front frame, as that takes a lot of stress. Small clamps are best, but you might get by with rubber bands or just weighing the pieces down while they dry, although the latter methods would make it more difficult to keep the alignment correct. (I was surprised at the comments reporting that the model broke or came apart, and I suspect that the glued parts were not clamped or weighted during assembly, or not allowed to dry.)I don't recommend that an inexperienced youngster try to build this alone, and you should be prepared to spread the construction over a few days. But the investment of effort pays off by teaching woodworking skills and patience, and resulting in a very fun and functional ballista! After it was thoroughly dry, my son had a blast firing away at a "castle" he had populated with toy figures, also using a simple wooden catapult we had built together previously.Our kit was high quality, with no missing parts, and the instructions were pretty good, if I remember correctly. Our kit came with only two or three projectiles (and they're easily lost), but we found other object to fire.The only complaint I might make is that it is difficult to tighten both of the skeins (loops of string) equally, because the way the tightened skeins are held in place allows adjustment in 1/2-turn increments only. It seems ours needed an adjustment in between (probably because our loops of string were not tied to just the same length -- that was rather tricky). You want equal torsion on both skeins to get it to fire most reliably. We worked out a solution by just wedging a small piece of wood between the "torsion bar" and the "stop-pin."All in all, a very educational and well constructed kit, well worth building, in my opinion!

Bought these for a 9 year old's birthday party. Assembly was straightforward - a bit of adult assistance needed for the string, but otherwise kids could do it themselves, took approximately 15 minutes. Loved that no glue was required. We launched pom poms and small foam balls.

My girls had these together super fast, and had a blast flinging dog kibble to our dogs on a rainy day

This is literal garbage. Pieces require a surprising amount of strength to piece together but the parts are fragile and break easy. Good luck. Buy something else for the child.