When City Hall Becomes a Workshop
Most evenings, the City Council Chambers Building at 112 N. Colorado St. belongs to elected officials and public comment periods. On the last Tuesday of October, it belongs to kids with rubber bands, popsicle sticks, and a genuine interest in how things fly.
The City of Celina is offering two distinct hands-on programs at that address on October 27, both running from 5:30 to 6:30 PM. One asks participants to engineer a working catapult. The other invites them to transform dried corn husks into a craft. Side by side on the same evening, the two programs capture something deliberate about how Celina has been approaching youth programming this fall: pairing the mechanical with the handmade, the scientific method with seasonal tradition.
Build a Catapult
The catapult session is part of a recurring STEM series hosted by the city. An earlier session ran on October 5, and the October 27 date gives families who missed the first round another shot at the workbench. The concept is simple enough on its surface — build a small launching device, test it, refine it — but the learning underneath covers foundational physics: tension, trajectory, counterweight, and the relationship between force and distance.
What makes the city-run format worth noting is the venue itself. Sitting down to engineer something in the same room where the city council conducts its business gives the space a different kind of civic meaning. For a lot of Celina kids, that chamber is an abstraction. For an hour on a Tuesday night, it becomes a workshop.
The program is free to attend, which matters in a city that has grown as fast as Celina has. When families are still getting their footing — new neighborhoods, new schools, new routines — low-barrier programming at a central, walkable downtown address shortens the distance between residents and the community institutions that serve them.
Corn Husk Hullabaloo
Running concurrently at the same location and time, the Corn Husk Hullabaloo leans into the craft and seasonal sides of October. Corn husks have a long history as a folk craft material — dolls, wreaths, decorative arrangements — and the program draws on that tradition while giving participants something tactile to take home.
The pairing of the two programs on one evening is practical for families with more than one kid, or for kids whose interests don’t fit neatly into either the “STEM” or “arts” column. One sibling can be stress-testing a catapult arm while another is working with natural materials at the same table. Or the same kid can bounce between both.
Part of a Larger Sesquicentennial Year
Neither program exists in isolation. Both fit into the broader arc of Celina150, the city’s yearlong sesquicentennial celebration marking 150 years since Celina’s founding. The anniversary has been a through-line for programming across the city in 2026 — from the community reading challenge at the public library to events on the Downtown Square — and the October STEM nights carry that same spirit of bringing residents together around shared, purposeful activity.
For younger residents especially, that civic engagement starts with showing up somewhere new and making something with your hands. The catapult session and the corn husk program are small-scale, but that’s partly the point. Not every community moment needs to be a festival with a stage and a headliner. Some of the most durable ones happen in folding chairs around a worktable.
Details for Families Planning Ahead
Both programs take place on Tuesday, October 27, from 5:30 to 6:30 PM at the City Council Chambers Building, 112 N. Colorado St. in downtown Celina. The location puts the programs within easy reach of the Downtown Square and the current Celina Public Library at 142 N. Ohio St., making it straightforward to pair the evening with a library visit or a stop at the Friday Night Market, which runs the same month on the square from 6 to 9 PM.
Families can confirm details and check for any registration requirements through the city’s official events calendar at celina-tx.gov. Given the hands-on nature of both sessions and the size of the venue, it is worth checking capacity before walking in.
October in Celina tends to stack up quickly between school calendars, sports schedules, and the pull of the city’s bigger seasonal events. These two programs at City Hall represent the quieter register of community life — the Tuesday-night, let’s-build-something version — and they are easy to overlook until they are gone.
