By Patricia Bogumil
Editor
The routine for chucking pumpkins sounds easy after a few dozen times: soft swish, hard thwack, occasional clunky thunk, weird splat. Cheers!
But getting to that fun spot takes hours of behind-the-scenes mechanical planning, re-designing and constant trial-by-error re-figuring.
Teams at Saturday’s Pumpkin Chuckin’ Contest at the Racine County Fairgrounds did their best to hurl pumpkins the furthest to win a trophy, score a cash prize, and live large with bragging rights.
The day’s events were sponsored by the Greater Union Grove Area Chamber of Commerce, and attracted teams of science-minded students from around the area, plus some adult enthusiasts.
At Union Grove High School, the kids did an awesome job and had a blast building and testing the machine, said technology education teacher and mentor Ryan Boylen.
Jason Stoll, the Waterford High School team teacher/mentor agreed about the fun part of the contest, and said students also had learned a lot about the physics and engineering of the simple trebuchet (a type of catapult) they designed.
“They learned a ton from design to redesign, construction techniques, material analysis, force – and I could go on and on,” Boylen agreed.
Waterford’s pumpkin chucker had a best distance of 197 feet. Stoll said the students are already working on improvements for next year’s competition.
Union Grove’s furthest launch was 343 feet in three competitive throws.
To start the process, the Union Grove students divided up into groups of two to design a launcher using SolidWorks, a solid modeling computer-aided design software.
After all designs were presented and one chosen, students applied for various positions on the project, like construction or project manager.
Once their “company” was in place, materials and work schedules were planned out. The students worked collaboratively to build their trebuchet.
“All in all it was a great project and I’m extremely proud of our kids for the way they owned their production,” Boylen said.
Official results were not yet posted by the Chamber as of press time Wednesday. Check the Nov. 7 Westine Report and Waterford Post for the official tally.
Unofficially, Union Grove High School led in distance with a best shot of 343 feet; Waterford High School’s best distance was 197 feet, placing the team third behind another group’s 250-foot shot.
Besides distance and accuracy, the competition also assigns points for machine design, originality and sportsmanship.
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