Hello, I am here today to tell you about my innovation Day project. As you may know, we were asked to build a medieval castle with a working drawbridge.

While I was doing the research, I found some interesting facts about the medieval times that I have summarized below:

• There are 3 types of castles, a motte and bailey castle, a stone keep castle and concentric castle.
• The difference between the Lords and the Serfs, was that the Serfs were poor and worked as slaves. Meanwhile, the Lords owned the Serfs that lived on their lands.
• Also, some interesting facts about the feudal system is that approximately 90% of the people worked on the land as peasants. The Kings believed that they had the right to rule and you were expected to fight for the king when requested. 

Hypothesis:

My hypothesis was that I could build a beautiful castle that would have a huge circular wall with a village inside and have patrol towers all around with access through the drawbridge.

My plan was to build a cardboard wall and then stab a skewer through the cardboard. I would then add a pulley to the skewer and hot glue the handle on the side of the pulley and hot glue a string to the middle of the pulley. Then I would build a second wall and stab another skewer through both walls at the top and add another pulley, then feed the string through the pulley at the top and then hot glue it to the bridge that’s made out of cardboard. Finally, I would tape the bridge to the castle. 

Procedure:

First, I built a big box with no roof     

Next, I built a drawbridge by cutting out the bridge out of cardboard and then stabbed 2 skewers through the cardboard wall and then I built 2 tiny walls in the box and put a straw through them. Then I added the 2 skewers through the straw to hold them.

Then, I added 2 gears to the wall where I stabbed the skewers on the outside of the wall and then I put another gear on the inside of the box on one of the skewers and then I hot glued a string to the gear.

Then, I cut out a small hole in the wall and then I put a pulley on it and fed the string through the pulley in the hole. 

Finally, I cut out a big hole in the wall and then I took the drawbridge and stabbed a skewer through the drawbridge and since there’s already a hole beside the drawbridge, I hot glued a straw on to it and then put the skewer of the drawbridge through it and on the other side I stabbed the skewer from the drawbridge into the cardboard wall. Then the string that was fed through the pulley I hot glued on to the drawbridge. I added a roof on the box and put another hole in the roof to see the drawbridge.

 

Final Results – Tour of my Castle:

 

Conclusion:

 

I chose to make a castle with big walls and a village inside and a box made out of cardboard with the drawbridge in it. The drawbridge had one pulley and one gear system. To make the draw bridge work and on the wall I put some guard towers made out of cardboard and at the end It was the size of half a table.So i dont think it would fit in my car but i will try to make it.

 

Self reflection:

 

I think that I did a pretty good job with my project but I did make some mistakes. Here is what they are. So for my first one that I would change it would be when my drawbridge would go up it would bend the cardboard wall and the pulley system but it doesn’t break it fully.Next is when I built the grass I used some white pieces of cardboard and the green did not cover it very well.But for the most part it was good except the worst thing about it. It was so big it wouldn’t fit in my mom’s car.