3 Simple Ways to
Share What You Make

With Instructables you can share what you make with the world — and tap into an ever-growing community of creative experts.

PhotosPhotos

Share one or more photos of a project, recipe, or whatever you've made, quickly and easily.

Get Started

Learn more & Get Tips

Step by StepStep-By-Step

Share your step-by-step photos with text instructions of what you made so others can do it too!

Get Started

Learn more & Get Tips

VideoVideo

Share your how-to video. You'll need your embed code from a video site such as YouTube.

Get Started

Learn more & Get Tips

Print PDF

Favorite

Recycled Fun Cardboard Cad-A-Pult

The task was to create a something with a green twist. Okay, I'm good with that. A chance to win a Zing Laser cutter for my class is an added bonus. Now if I could add some fun and learning into the mix, it would make it even better.

So what to do? Hmmmm?

My students love to build things and throw stuff so let's put both together! Now, for the green part. Let's see if we can make something that is recyclable and fun! Looking around the classroom, I see lots of cardboard (used shipping boxes) and a good supply of Elmer's glue. So, with a little help from Autodesk's CAD program Inventor, I whipped up a nice little Catapult (Hence "CAD-A-Pult").

Next, to obtain more cardboard, I put out an email to other teachers in my school for boxes. Boy, did the boxes pour in!

If you would like a copy of the plans, information on how to obtain them free of charge is listed after the assembly instructions.

Remove these ads by Signing Up

Step 1An Idea is recycled

A quick jump into Autodesk's CAD program Inventor and the CAD-A-Pult is born. The basic design is set up so that a 1:1 scale drawing will fit perfectly into the Zing Laser Cutter. If we get lucky enough to win the Zing Laser Cutter (hint, hint), we can make a whole class full of these things!

« Previous Step

Download PDFView All Steps

Next Step »

9 comments

Mar 3, 2010. 3:12 PMmattccc says:

could you upload the cad files

Oct 21, 2009. 3:17 AMTheSweetRevenge says:

This is great =D though all the plans weren't here [and we didn't email you] it was pretty easy to guess. we are making this for a project [7th grade] with a few changes.. and paint xD <br /> <br /> thanks for posting this > <<br />

Jun 19, 2009. 8:08 PMluchoz says:

algo dificil

Jun 19, 2009. 8:07 PMluchoz says:

buenisimo por ser casero!!!!!!

Jun 4, 2009. 9:20 PMIdeal_Ideas91 says:

INVENTOR! I Love This Program! Much Better Than Autocad (Which Im stuck with Cuz Inventor Cost Too Much :( )

Apr 15, 2009. 8:12 AMmacmaniac says:

This is really brilliant but the whole point of instructables is telling people how to make stuff, and you're not giving us any plans - upload a pdf of the plans so we can just download them!