Hi and welcome to my blog post for Innovation Day about medieval castles! I won’t just tell you about castles… I will tell you how I made my castle, my working drawbridge and some extra information I picked up on the way!

Here is some background information I collected when researching for Innovation Day.

Castles 

Castles have holes in their exterior walls so that the guards can throw rocks at intruders to keep them away. Castles also have a moat to protect it from intruders. A moat is a trench filled with water that is outside the perimeter of the castle to make it harder for anybody to get near the castle. A moat needs a drawbridge so people can get across without drowning or getting stuck in the water. A drawbridge is something a guard stands right on top of to move it up and down. If there are any villains or intruders that are trying to come into the castle, the guard would have to pull up the bridge using a pulley to make it go up and down so they can decide who goes in the castle and who doesn’t. Castles have prisons to keep intruders and villains from the nearby towns to stay away and to teach them a lesson. 

Drawbridges

Drawbridges help maintain order so nobody could get in the castle without a guard knowing. The drawbridge is something that is used to help people get into the castle without falling into the moat. Guards use a pulley system to move the drawbridge up and down. Normally, drawbridges have chains or string that they can wrap around the pulley to make it move up or down. If someone were to try lifting up the drawbridge without a guard, it would probably be way too heavy for them. Drawbridges normally have a gate that closes up and down and the gate is normally made out of metal or wood. This makes it harder for people to get in and out of the castle if the gate is down. 

Lords and Serfs

Serfs were farmworkers, they grew and sold crops and they took care of the animals. If serfs ran away from their village, and they managed to survive a year and a day without getting caught they would become a freeman. Serfs lived in small homes, usually made out of mud and wood, and the roofs were made out of straw. They normally had one room, and they would sleep on straw beds. Serfs had no education or power, so they had no authority and couldn’t do anything. 

If you were the child of a lord or a lady, you would live a privileged life. You lived in a nice home and you could be one of the few who got to learn how to read and write. Normally you would become a lord or lady yourself if your parents were one. 

Feudal System

Charles the Great was a person who took over the land for most of the middle ages. He became the King. He gave people who worked for him land instead of money. This was the feudal system. It was a different time back then. They enjoyed getting land more because they could have more crops, more food, and more animals to survive. 

Knights

Knights are people who help protect the castle so that if there is a war that starts, then the knights will help defend the royal family. 

Hypothesis

Here is my design of what I wanted my castle and drawbridge to look like. I designed and created my design in Minecraft:

 

Procedure:

Before I get to my procedure, I will tell you what you will need to build a castle:

• cardboard,
• string,
• clay,
• and hot glue.

Now we can get started!

First I glued the cardboard in a box shape.

Then made battlements on the top of the castle.

After I cut the front for the drawbridge and then string and glue the string to the drawbridge so that you can lift and lower the drawbridge and that is how you make a castle!

Results:

Here is the final tour of my finished castle and drawbridge. I will explain how my pulley system works:

Conclusion and Self-reflections:

In conclusion, my castle looks like what was in my head and my pulley system works. If i did it again, I would have liked my castle to be bigger.

A shout out to Meadow for helping me with my Minecraft design!