Punkin’ Chunkin’ Debuts at Penn High School

One of the biggest challenges for teachers is to find new and creative ways to teach students.

Penn Physics teacher Jonathon Lockwood has done just that by hosting Penn’s first Punkin’ Chunkin’ contest. 

Nearly 500 Penn students from various STEM classes such as Physics, Introduction to Design and Engineering were divided into teams. Studying the unit on projectile motion, the teams were tasked with researching and choosing one of the three types of seige engines; the ballista (large crossbow/slingshot), the trebuchet, and the mangonel catapult to launch their pumpkins. Classes then spent four class periods designing and building.

The Introduction to Design class, made up of freshmen and sophomores, built their machines out of popsicle sticks and launched mini candy pumpkins. The other classes (using wood, PVC pipe and other assorted items) designed larger machines, which catapulted mini-foam pumpkins which were weighted down equally to make the competition even. 

The competition was held for two days (Oct. 31 & Nov. 1). The competition saw students collecting data that would then be used to calculate maximum horizontal, vertical and directional velocity for their launcher. The calculations are then used to help students study the projectile motion unit and will also be used later this year when studying the conservation of energy.

At the end of the two days of competition, team Men in Black won the Catapult division with a distance of 107-8, team Arrowhead won the Ballista division with a distance of 56-3 and The Door Stops won the Trebuchet division with a distance of 122-1.

Finishing in third place for overall distance was team Men in Black with a distance of 107-8, second place went to team Taco Tuesday at 121-6 and finishing in first place was The Door Stops with a winning distance of 122-1. The Door Stops will have their name put on a trophy helmet, much like the Stanley Cup. Watch their winning throw below …

 “I got the idea for this assignment when watching re-runs of a past fall special on Punkin’ Chunkin’ run by the Discovery Channel,” said Mr. Lockwood.

The launching devices built for the Discovery Channel show are capable of launching real pumpkins nearly a mile long and velocities above the speed of sound. Due to cost and mess, Mr. Lockwood decided not use real pumpkins for Penn’s Punkin Chuckin’.

“In physics and science in general we look to find real life applications for the simple concepts that we talk about at the high school level,” Mr. Lockwood said. “This competition allows students the opportunity to organically develop, test, measure and explain the success of a device that they built, based on these principles that we discussed in class.”

A Photo Gallery is posted below.