Students in Amy Fecke’s Applied Physics class at Washington High School recently put their engineering skills to the test during a hands-on challenge that blended creativity, problem-solving, and physics principles.

As a culminating activity for their recent unit, students were tasked with an engineering challenge: to design, build, test, and refine a catapult capable of launching a marshmallow into a bucket exactly two meters away. Using their understanding of force, motion, angles, and energy transfer, students worked in teams to construct and adjust their devices, applying both trial and error and physics calculations to reach their goal.

The activity not only reinforced key concepts in physics but also encouraged teamwork, innovation, and critical thinking—core components of the applied learning approach.

Photos from the engineering challenge are below.