Sunday, 5 May 2024
Life, the universe, pies, hot-pink bunnies, world domination, and everything
All right, Pumpkin Droppers: time to start designing our vehicle. Robert has a few ideas but is still wrestling with practicalities, so everything is up for grabs.
(Anyone who has no idea what we’re talking about may consult Part Two, Part One, and even earlier announcements.)
Date: October 4, 2007
Categories: Ideas, Non-Muse news, Nonrandom Craziness
Robert – why don’t you just post what you have…we can help you if you need it! 
Other stuff that might help convince your parents to let you skip the day of school
–It’s educational! (and other stuff to do with the Pumpkin Drop)
–Bodies exhibit in Pittsburgh
–Really close to Muse, PA
–The next day, there is a Global Environmental conference thing with Erin Brockovich in Pittsburgh, which is also educational.
–You can stay at Purple Panda’s and Taiwan Hippo Fan’s house
I mean, who wouldn’t want to come??
:D:D:D
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First, a little physics to let you know what we’re dealing with. (You can skip down a few posts if you hate calculations and just want the juicy results.)
The pumpkins, in their protective capsules, are pushed off a sort of diving board at the top of an 11-story building on the campus of West Virginia University. Eleven stories at about 10 feet per story is approximately 110 feet, or 33 meters. That’s how far they fall — the height, h.
By being hauled up to that great height, the pumpkins acquire potential energy (P.E.). As they fall, that potential energy turns into energy of motion, or kinetic energy (K.E.). Naturally, the kinetic energy is greatest just before the pumpkin hits the ground. Then, BLAM! — and in most cases, KABLOOEY!
The nice thing about physics is that it tells you how to put numbers on P.E. and K.E. To find out the potential energy, you multiply the mass of the pumpkin and its container (m) times the acceleration of gravity (g) times the height:
P.E. = mgh.
If you’ve studied physics, then you’ll recall that the kinetic energy is one half times the mass times the square of the velocity:
K.E. = (1/2)m(v^2).
Just before it hits the ground, the pumpkin’s potential energy has all been converted to kinetic energy, so P.E. = K.E., or
mgh = (1/2)*m(v^2)
Algebra lets you cancel the ms, and with a little rearranging you can figure out the pumpkin’s final velocity:
v^2 = 2gh, or v = sqrt(2gh).
Again from physics, you know that g at Earth’s surface is about 9.8 meters per second per second (m/s^2). So just before it hits the ground, the pumpkin is falling about sqrt(2 * 10 m/s^2 * 33 m) = sqrt(660 m^2/s^2) = 25.4 meters per second.
Anyone like to tell us what that comes to in miles per hour?
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Pumpkin drop? I’m more concerned with the egg drop I have to do to MAYBE get into the Science Olympiad team.
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2- *dies a gruesome and horrible death*
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Come on. I’m doing all the hard stuff for you. You can convert meters per second to miles per hour.
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4~ agreed.
So, is there hope for newcomers?
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5-okay then. I will. It’s 56.820816mph.
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I’m in physics right now! and I did that conversion myself, thank you very much. No internet converters for me! Hah!
We haven’t gotten to kinetic and potential energy yet. We’re doing falling objects though… I bet I could have figured out the speed with what I know now…
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Oh, that’s easy! I’ve never taken Physics (I will next year), but I’ve taken other science classes (Chemistry this year) and all you need to do is set up a simple factor-label thing. Either that or do it in your head, but I’d prefer the factor-label method.
So if you have 25.4 meters/second, you set it up, and put in 1,609.344 meters in 1 mile, and 3600 seconds in an hour, do the multiplication and cancellation and such and get 91,400 miles over 1609.344 hours, divide, and get:
56.7933267 miles per hour
And, of course, then you’d make that to the correct number of significant digits, and such. But that’s basically it, right?
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Ack, widdershins beat me to it. She probably posted it while I was typing or something. But we did get different answers. Hmm…
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WHOA, BABY, ALOTTA MATH. Why do we care about how fast it’ll fall or whatever??? We just wanna see the PUMPKIN GUTS.
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5- Sorry. Allergic to math.
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(6, 11) Hmm… I’m starting to understand why Muse Academy students get those odd looks on their faces when they hear they’ve been assigned to Coontz House. But never fear, there’s fun ahead.
(7, 9) Thanks, OW and PP. Considering all the approximating and estimating I’ve been doing, it’s enough to say that pumpkin capsules entered in the Pumpkin Drop hit the ground going 57 miles per hour.
In other words, you could test a pumpkin capsule by hanging it from a tree on a rope and slamming into it with a car going 57 miles an hour. That’s NOT RECOMMENDED, but it gives you an idea of the forces we’re dealing with.
Of course, you could also test it by dropping it from another eleven-story building. As it happens, my office is on the eleventh floor — but I suspect the District of Columbia police would show up pretty fast if I started plopping pumpkins into the middle of New York Avenue. So that’s out.
Fortunately, there’s another way. In this case, it helps to think about potential energy in old-fashioned Anglo-American units, pounds and feet. A 10-pound pumpkin dropped from 110 feet hits the ground with 10 times 110 = 1,100 foot-pounds of energy.
On the other hand, a 200-pound human being jumping onto a pumpkin from 5.5 feet overhead also hits it with 200 x 5.5 = 1,100 foot-pounds of energy. So to simulate the effect of the Drop on a lone pumpkin, all I have to do is put on my heavy hiking boots, climb a step ladder, and jump.
That’s just for the pumpkin. If you add the weight of the capsule, the effect of the drop might be more like two or three people my size jumping at the same time. Still, it does give a rough idea of what the capsule has to stand up to.
That’s the end of the math and science. Now let’s talk about designs.
The major design choice facing pumpkin droppers is this: parachute, or no parachute?
The advantage of the parachute, of course, is that it slows the capsule down, resulting in a softer landing. A parachute also helps you control which part of your capsule hits the ground first, so you can design it with that in mind.
If the wind is blowing, though, the capsule is likely to drift a little as it falls. That’s a disadvantage, because to win the Drop, you have to do more than survive the fall: you also have to land closest to a bullseye on the ground directly under the pumpkins’ “gangplank.” Capsules without parachutes are more likely to fall straight down and hit the bullseye.
Whoops — I have to break off and do something else right now. Feel free to discuss parachutes-vs.-no-parachutes or anything else you like until I get back…
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*drops pumpkin* WHAT?
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Wheeee, I like math! I’m not as good as all of that, but it sounds good!
Because of what Robert said, I vote no parachute.
I still don’t think we can come, but I’ll help with designs…
At its widest point, the pumpkin-o-smasher, er, capsule, can be 5′.
To also slow down the capsule, as well as spread out the landing force on the pumpkin, you want to make use of that space. Hint: think of a snowshoe.
Also, there should be something that the guys on the ground can push or something that pops the thing right open. But, of course, not open when it lands…
I can’t stay at the moment, but I’ll be back…
Red-tailed HAWK
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9- I KNOW WHY OUR ANSWERS DIFFER!! I multiplied what Robert gave us times .001 to convert into kilometers then by .6214 to convert into miles then by 3600 to convert into hours. See, you used the m to miles conversion factor and I used a km to miles one with less decimal places. LIFE MAKES SENSE NOW!
AND I like math and I’m in Spector house. I wonder what that tells you. If anything.
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16 (oxlin) – I’m in Spector house, too! I wouldn’t say that I particularly enjoy math, but I’m fairly-ish good at it, and it’s kind of fun when I know how to do it. It’s not my favorite subject, though.
I’m still thinking about the parachute…it’s a tough decision.
Does anyone have ideas for the inside of the trashcan/whatever we use? I had an idea with rubber bands, but I’m not sure if it will work.
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My first thought was to resurrect Aaron’s Koko Bomb from last time, with improvements.
I think it could work if we put something something other than insulation foam in the wastebasket–balloons, maybe. They’d be nice and springy and would keep the weight down. (The less weight, the less violent the landing, relatively speaking.) Maybe half-inflated balloons would work better. We could check by giving them the “jump test.”
We’d also need a bigger, more securely attached parachute. Maybe it would make sense to cut a hole in the top so that it would keep the capsule upright without pulling it too far off course. I don’t know much about parachutes, but there’s bound to be basic information on the Web.
Then I had an idea for a spectacularly different design…
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18 (Robert) – Sometimes, Robert, you are the king of cliffhangers.
I could do some research on parachutes, unless your spectacularly different design idea doesn’t use one or you’ve already researched them yourself.
Also, are you coming to the Pumpkin Drop? I was under the impression you were, but then my mom said you might not be… *ponders*
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I’m planning to be there. I’ve asked to get Friday off from work and hope to take Thursday, too.
Some of my other designs use parachutes, some don’t. They’re certainly worth knowing about. How big do they have to be, how do you make sure they “inflate” instead of just flapping around, what about cutting holes or slits to let air through, etc.? At the last Pumpkin Drop I saw one parachute made from a bedsheet that slowed down its capsule amazingly well but nearly carried it into the crowd when a gust of wind caught it on the way down.
I’m about to go to bed, so my other ideas will have to wait until tomorrow. Rebecca is already offline, and Rosanne is out of town, so moderation will cease for the night in about five minutes.
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How to cheat – you’d need to check the rules, but with luck, the organisers won’t have thought of this one, so it’s probably legal.
Before you drop the pumpkin, drop a lead weight with a line attached. With very low air resistance, this should hit the target spot-on. Now slide the pumpkin down the line. A simple friction device should allow it to slide down at a leisurely pace, and hit the ground so gently that it won’t even bruise. Once it’s down, you can let go of the other end of the line.
If it is legal, I guarantee they’ll ban it for next year.
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21-That would be FANTASTIC!
But I think they only let you push it off of the end of the board, so you couldn’t reach to let the pumpkin down the line. Phoooey.
I’m going to make a quick sketch of what I’m talking about and send it in…
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They push it off for you, in one big whoosh. But keep the ideas coming, Paul. I like your deviousness ingenuity.
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Here is RtH’s design:
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Get a wooden box, about double as long a s the pumpkin and six inches wider. Get a bunch of kitchen paper towel rolls and stand them up on the bottom of the pumpkin. They should be fitted tightly. Put about three inches of rice in each roll. Fill the rest with slightly blown up ballons. Place pumkin on the rolls. Stuff with toiletpaper and slightly filled ballons.
The paper towel rolls should be crush on contact, but slow the pumpkin down enough to keep it from bursting? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
I’m trying to start a pumpkin drop at my school, at about four stories!!!
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The specifications say the container can be a maximum of 30″ x 30″ x 60″.
The rules also say that any small, loose packing material has to be biodegradable. Rice certainly qualifies on that score. It is pretty heavy, though, and I’m not sure it’s compressible enough for our purposes. From the pumpkin’s point of view, hitting a pile of rice inside the container probably wouldn’t be much different from hitting the ground. Ideally, you want something that will squish (or pop) just enough to keep the pumpkin from hitting the wall of the container. That way, the packing material will absorb most of the force of impact, leaving the pumpkin unscathed. Keep the ideas coming…
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How about those packing penuts made from corn syrup? They sort of melt when you stick them in water, are very light, and squishey.
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How about marshmallows?
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Ooh. I think I shall begin designing one.
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Parachute with a slit in it seems to make sense. It would slow the descent, but the air rushing upward through the middle would steady it against various gusts.
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Robert–being the only one here who’s been to the pumpkin drop before: overall, did the pumpkins with our without parachutes do better?
My mom also suggests Popcorn as a packing material.
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I’m not sure how many of the ten or so survivors had parachutes. I do know that the winner — put together by a group of fifth-grade homeschoolers who lived near Morgantown — was just a big cardboard box filled with some sort of packing material and duct-taped shut. It was ugly and inelegant, but it did the job. It fell straight down, hit with a thud, didn’t roll away, and preserved its pumpkin.
I think that the best packing material is air. Airbags protect people in car crashes, so they should be able to protect a pumpkin. And because they conform to the shape of the pumpkin, they spread the force of the impact over more of its surface. More square inches means fewer pounds per square inch of pressure. It’s concentrated force that you have to watch out for.
I’ve sketched a couple of my ideas and will be uploading them shortly. More to come later tonight.
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Righto, some thoughts:
Just for fun, I started by trying to imagine the lightest, most minimal pumpkin capsule I could. How little packaging material could I get away with? Would it be possible to do away with “stuffing” entirely?
I decided that the minimum would be a rigid crate or cage with the pumpkin hanging inside in some sort of bag, like a punching bag, possibly suspended from a spring. The spring (if any) or stretchy bag material would absorb the impact, and the bag would spread it over the pumpkin’s surface in an even squeeze. I wondered what kind of material would be best until a friend of mine (who is married and had just been doing the laundry) suggested pantyhose. Perfect!
For shape, I liked the idea of a tetrahedron, because it seemed stabler and would be less likely to roll away from the target after it hit. A square crate would be easier to build, though. You’d need a parachute to make sure it landed right-side down. Or you could just anchor the pumpkin on several sides, though it might take some creative sewing to make a bag with suitable attachments.
I like the idea behind these designs — they’re so open and airy and transparent — but there are challenges. You’d have to be sure that the frame would be strong and rigid enough to keep the pumpkin off the ground, and that the fabric and/or spring(s) wouldn’t stretch too much. You’d also have to keep the pumpkin in its bag from wobbling around and smashing itself against the frame. So in practice, you might have to wind up padding it after all, which would spoil the effect.
Then my mind wandered a little, and eventually I came up with another idea for a cage…
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Okay, Robert, when you finish posts with statements like that, are you intentionally trying to drive us crazy, or are you just so good at it you don’t think about it anymore? *is driven crazy*
In an art class I took in 6th grade, we learned that triangles and x-shapes (which are made of triangles) are the strongest structures, so I suggest we use those.
I really like the drawings, they’re awesome!
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(33) Good to know there’s at least one legitimate use for pantyhose.
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(34) I liked the triangles, too. The problem with a tetrahedron, though, is that the corners come together at strange angles. As a result, building a tetrahedral frame requires carpentry tools and skills that I don’t have. (PP and THF and their parents might have them, but I was thinking about this before I’d met them or knew they would be involved.) What I really needed was ready-made pieces that I could put together with duct tape. And then it came to me: hula-hoops.
You can tape four hula-hoops together to make a sort of hula-tetrahedron, or six of them to make a hula-cube. So I ordered a package of 12 thirty-inch hoops and gave it a try. I laid the hoops out on the ground as shown below, flipped up the sides, and tied them with twist-ties. (Pardon the poor quality of the sketches and photographs. I’m working under sub-optimal conditions today.)
Cute, aren’t they? Now the bad news: they’re not very strong. Even with doubled or tripled hoops and lots of duct tape, I don’t think a hula-capsule would pass the jumping-off-the-ladder test. You could reinforce them by running doweling across at right angles as spokes — but in that case you might as well just build a wooden frame to begin with. So I’m feeling disenchanted with the hoops right now, though I would like to make some measurements to see just how tough they are. They’re so pretty that I can’t help thinking they must be useful for something.
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The Koko Bomb v.2.0 seems like the best design to me.
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Is there a requirement for pumpkin size? Just out of curiosity.
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Perhaps if one attaches the parachute to one end of a long rope and the Koko Bomb to the other, then drops it off. It seems that while with a short attachment, the Bomb would be at the mercy of its own descent reduction system and the vagaries of the wind, with a long one, the Bomb would be steadier. I don’t know the physics, so I don’t know if that would work, but intuitively it seems right.
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(38) As I recall, the pumpkin’s minimum diameter has to be 10 inches. They don’t want you dropping hard little knobs. Last time one of the survivors was disqualified because it turned out to be some other kind of oddly shaped gourd.
(37) I’m inclining toward a big box o’ balloons, myself. But Nak and Aaron would probably enjoy a successful Koko Bomb.
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I like the hula hoops. I am, however, speaking esthetically.
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Esthetics do enter into it. There is a “best design” award.
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I like the hoops and Robert’s frame with pantyhose and springs designs.
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Random question: Do we have a TEAM NAME?
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The organization we’re registered as representing is MuseBlog. But we haven’t named our team or the “pumpkin device” (as the registration letter calls it) yet.
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I can’t come….Oh well.
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Too bad. But maybe you and your rocket-scientist parents can give us some ideas?
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36 (Robert) – I don’t have particularly good carpentry skills (which means, erm, none at all), and neither does THF or my mom, but I think my dad is pretty good at it. He built a bit swingset in our backyard, and a bunch of other stuff. We also have many tools in his “workroom.” Our neighbor, who was an electrical engineer but also loved carpentry stuff, moved away to a tiny apartment, and none of his stuff would fit. So, we have an unbelivable amount of tools and supplies which would come in handy. We also live about 5 minutes away from a Home Depot.
Also, who is going to build this contraption and when?
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You are! And soon! Which is why a big box full of popcorn is just fine, if that’s what you want. I think it would work as well as any of the contraptions I’ve sketched out above.
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We talked about it at dinner today. After much discussion, we came up with: filling pantyhose with popcorn and marshmallows and wrapping them around the pumpkin…then hanging them in some sort of box or triangular thing and putting balloons in that.
…But it still needs modification. And that’s just what we came up with (as of today at dinner, combining everyone’s suggestions). But we still have a few weeks before the drop to work it out.
We’re also probably going to go to the farm where we go apple picking to get a pumpkin and ask the farmer which pumpkin would be the best to drop off an 11-story building. I’ll be interested to see what his reaction is
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Hm… Don’t forget, the ground crew has to be able to extract the pumpkin within 30 seconds after it lands, or you’re disqualified. Complicated packaging could make that hard for them to do.
You know, I’m becoming more and more attached to the idea of putting the pumpkin in the middle of a box filled with big bags of popcorn. You could put full bags near the outside, and half-full bags closer to the pumpkin for a snugger fit. After the drop, you could retrieve the popcorn and eat it, feed birds with it, turn it into caramel cornballs, or whatever you like. Simple, environmentally sound, edible, and I suspect extremely pumpkin-friendly.
The farmer will probably know what kinds of pumpkins are toughest. The conventional wisdom at the last drop was to get the smallest pumpkin that would qualify. So take measuring tape or a ruler along. It has to be at least 10″ across the smallest diameter. It will probably weigh about 9 or 10 pounds. I’d guess that in this case lighter means relatively dry and tough, but the farmer will know. Just make sure he understands that you’re not asking which kind will make the biggest splat — au contraire.
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I’m gonna try to get a pumpkin and make a big deal of throwing it out of the second story of my friend’s house. 
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51 (Robert) – That’s a good point. We definitely wouldn’t want to be disqualified. What kind of box? Would just a cardboard box be okay? We’re going to be making a lot of popcorn… *envisions stove and kitchen area exploding with popcorn* I can’t eat popcorn, but I suspect you, and my family will be very happy to. THF can probably whip it into something tasty.
And if the winners when you went just used a duct-taped cardboard box, it should work relatively well.
This is so exciting! *waits impatiently for the 26th*
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Yes, just a cardboard box. You’re allowed up to 30″ x 30″ x 60″. The winner my year was a 30″ cube.
It might be cheaper and/or easier to buy your popcorn already popped. Warehouse shopping places probably sell it by the bail.
If you don’t feel like buying that much popcorn, you could try trash bags filled with balloons and securely tied. (A bag of popcorn is probably about 50 percent air, so it’s effectively an air cushion, too.) If the balloons pop, their air will stay in the bag. Or maybe you want the air to leave the bag to use up energy — I’m not sure. You might want to give different materials the jump-off-the-ladder test…
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Would the parachute-on-a-rope idea help?
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The rules say that parachutes have to take the plunge along with the “pumpkin device,” not after it. It sounds as if that may preclude a long-rope design.
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Hmm. A pity.
I like the idea of popcorn as padding though.
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I suppose electronics are banned? I’m thinking a great big fan with contra-rotating blades to slow the descent down to a crawl, and some radio-controlled side thrusters to guide the package precisely onto the target.
If the thing has to be autonomous, it shouldn’t be too difficult to put together a light-seeking control circuit. Shine one of those laser pointers (used at all the best conferences) onto the middle of the target, and you have a deisgnator. If the US air force can achieve a 90% hit rate with smart bombs, a bunch of MUSErs should be able to drop a pumpkin in a circle.
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No electricity allowed, I’m afraid.
I’ve posted the Pumpkin Drop Rules separately so you can see what we’re up against.
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10 – probably rounding differences. We get that with the physics packets a lot. I hate having an answer about one off like that….
13 – I think perhaps a small parachute. After all, a square yard of cloth can slow someone down a *lot*. I don’t remember how much, but it was in Angels and Demons.
And I’m really quite liking the idea of the balloons, particularly partially inflated ones. Partially inflated ones would have the extra stretch to absorb a certain amount of extra pressure without exploding, whereas fully inflated ones would probably blow.
The question is exactly how biodegradable latex is. It’s from rubber trees, so there must be hope….
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“…but natural latex decomposes when exposed to the elements, turning rapidly to dust.”
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Sorry for the triple post.
But that was Wikipedia, by the way.
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We’ve got some expert advise from my Mom, who used to have to pack french horns for shipping….without a case.
Here’s what she says;
Use two boxes. The inside box will contain the pumkin, with padding. This box may be suspended in the outer box by the corners.
The outer box will have a layer of popcorn, and then a layer of newspaper, then more popcorn. This importaint, since the pumpkin hits the popcorn, meets the newspaper, which slows it down, and still has more popcorn to assure asoft landing.
She adds that they never had a damaged horn, despite the postal service’s attempts to murder everything that goes through their system. (No offence to anyone, of course.)
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By the way, popcorn, the edible kind, has already proved itself to be a good packing material. Lawson Horns received one packaged in real popcorn, not the “packing popcorn”! Quite a surprise for the people that opened it, eh?!
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Apologies for the triple post, but I have more information now…
If you want to have less weight, use the biodegradable corn packing popcorn that is available now. Actual popcorn is heavier since the kernals add weight. Of course, I suppose you could pick out all the kernals of the popcorn, but that seems rather inefficent…. 
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I talked to my physics teacher, and she liked the suspension idea a *lot* better. Her second choice was partially inflated balloons, as long as they are secured so the pumpkin can’t part them and hit the bottom of the box….
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I like MF’s idea of suspending one box inside another. My newest thought: putting a pumpkin inside a box with a bunch of half-inflated balloons, packed tightly. Then, suspending that box inside another box. (By string, rope, etc.)
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Remember that when the capsule slams into the ground, all of the energy of its motion has to go somewhere and do something. It can stretch springs or rubber bands or pantyhose, it can squash popcorn or balloons or Styrofoam peanuts, it can even destroy the package — as long as it leaves the pumpkin intact. So in the split second when the package comes to a halt, you want the pumpkin to move. You just don’t want it to move at full speed into the ground, or into a wall of the package that’s as firm as the ground. It has to move against resistance, stretch/squash/damage something weaker than it is, and slow down and stop less violently than the package itself does.
So if you suspend a box inside another box, you’d better make sure that the inner box doesn’t just tear loose and crash down into the outer box. (Or is the space between the boxes filled with packing material, too?) And what is the function of an inner box? Why would it be better than, say, a bag?
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68 (Robert) – that’s a good point…I forgot about that. The only reason I thought an inner box would help more than, say, a bag, is because MF said it helps to have an extra layer. But I guess a bag would work as well. The outer box was so the pumpkin would have space to move in, though it could just be a frame of some sort. I think I meant something more like springs than rope, so it could move.
…I’ll need to think about this a little more…
Also, what if we used helium balloons? Is that allowed?
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We could use helium balloons. I’m not sure how much difference they would make — one helium balloon can’t lift anything much heavier than a few paper clips — but there’s no rule against it.
In mailing horns, MF’s mother had to deal with a few problems we don’t have to worry about, such as sharp edges and other things that might puncture the container en route. Our pumpkin won’t encounter anything like that — just a very fast, hard landing.
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*cough* Mom’s horns had to endure that too. Ever taken a look at the way packages arrive nowadays? Maybe the postal service practices for the pumpkin drop on the packages they get through…
Yes, both boxes have packing in them. Read post 63 again, dearie.
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My mom suggested suspending the pumpkin with pantyhose, which would give just enough flexibility but wouldn’t break (according to her).
Maybe the pumpkin should be in a bag of some sort with balloons in it, then put in a box of popcorn? I’m unsure of how well the popcorn will protect the pumpkin, though. How much will it crumble/give under the weight of the pumpkin? Maybe we’ll test it off the roof of our house…
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68 Got me thinking about helicopter/maple seed wings. Could there be an expanding set of wing that pop out like a parachute, spinning to slow the descent?
Is the entry into the pumpkin by the judges after the fall an issue? Only 30 seconds and some of these fantastic/ insane ideas?
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A spinning descent would be fun. The only drawback I can see is that it might make the package more likely to roll away from the point of impact.
The members of the ground crew are very good at getting at the pumpkins, and they’re well equipped with knives and other tools. I don’t think the time limit will pose a real problem, unless Purple Panda and Taiwan Hippo Fan lock the pumpkin up in a safe or something.
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Good news! My previous calculations neglected air resistance, also known as drag. I looked up the equation and plugged in some estimates of the capsule’s size and density, and it turns out that it makes a real difference. The capsule probably will hit the ground at a mere 13 to 16 meters per second, or 30 to 35 miles per hour. Much better!
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30-35 mph seems better. How much force do y’all think the pumpkin will accept before smashing into a million gooey pieces??
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Flamablamablous!
We’ll probably get all the device-making-supplies and such this weekend. Though I don’t think we’ve made a decision on a final design yet. Suggestions?
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GAPAs – I sent you a picture of a design idea.
I still don’t like it (you’ll see the idea as soon as the GAPAs post it), but we don’t have a lot of time left to decide…because we’re getting the stuff to make it today, or tomorrow at the latest. I don’t really know what the pantyhose suspending the inner box will do, but my mom seemed to think it was a good idea. Both my parents also said balloons weren’t a good idea, because they would either break instantly, or stretch so the pumpkin would hit the ground anyway. I disagreed, because the pumpkin just needs to slow down enough to not break, which I think balloons would do…but I don’t really know. This is the idea my mom suggested, with a few modifications that I made, but I still don’t know if it’s the best one we’ve thought of yet…
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Pumpkin Drop design idea from Purple Panda (see comment 78):
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Hm, that looks as if it ought to work. It’s not that different from a big box full of bags of popcorn. Just a few quick comments:
1. I think the scale is off. Boxes can be no more than 30″x30″x60″. It looks as if you’re planning a 30-inch cube. Pumpkins have to be at least 30 inches in circumference, or about 10 inches in diameter. In that case, you’ll just have 10″ inches of padding on each side of the pumpkin — a bit less than shown there. You might find you don’t have much room for an inner box.
2. Attaching the elastic bands (made of pantyhose) to the boxes might prove a challenge. Tape will pull off; knots will pull through. If you do want to suspend one box inside another, your best bet might be a continous loop passing through the inner box along its edges and passing outside the outer box, through holes in the corners. Either loops around corresponding edges or Xs along the diagonals should work, though pantyhose legs may not be long enough.
3. Cardboard is pretty flexible, so the main effect of the pantyhose “suspension” might be to transfer force to the outer box, squeezing it inward. If that’s true, then rope might work as well as pantyhose.
4. I’ll bet plastic bags filled with popcorn would work as well as the pantyhose. But if you’ve got loads of pantyhose to spare, well, why not?
5. Whatever kind of cushioning you use, I’d understuff the bags you plan to put next to the pumpkin. That way they’ll mold themselves to its shape. Form-fitting (but still slightly yielding) packaging near the pumpkin will help distribute the force over as much as possible of the pumpkin’s surface, keeping pressure from concentrating in small areas.
6. Remember, the ground crew has to be able to cut in and free the pumpkin within 30 seconds. They’re good at their jobs and can easily cut through cardboard, but keep that time limit in mind.
That’s all I can think of. Are you planning to decorate the outside?
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80 (Robert) –
1. Yes, I forgot to say it wasn’t to scale…I wasn’t really thinking about proportions when I was drawing it. It’s a 30-inch cube. Do you think eliminating the inner box is a good idea?
2. Thanks for the suggestion! I was wondering how we would accomplish that…
3. My mom liked pantyhose because they would give it a little more “give.” Though I think rope would work too.
4. My mom says she has way too many pantyhose, so we have plenty
5. That’s what we did–I think I forgot to draw that, too. There are many more things wrong with my drawing too, say, for example, blue popcorn…
6. Do you think it will be too hard for them to get to the pumpkin? I’m not sure how strong x-acto knives are.
We’re planning on decorating it. I was brainstorming names for the pumpkin/device with my brother, and one of the names we came up with was “Koko Bazucca.” (“zucca” is “pumpkin” in Italian). But Koko Bomb 2 works, too.
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So “zucchini” must mean “little bombs.” Nice!
I’d say go ahead and try the inner box. You’ll be able to tell whether there’s room.
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Bazucca sounds very good. I eagerly await a report on how it went!
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…or maybe the Italian word for bombs means “big zucchini.”
If you do use an inner box, you’ll wind up with something a lot like a tesseract. That’s more Urania’s (and Ivars Peterson’s) sort of thing.
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84- Tesseract? As in A Wrinkle In Time?
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Yes, though Madeleine L’Engle didn’t describe tesseracts very well, and I’ve never been sure that she knew what they are.
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86- What are they?
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Three-dimensional projections of four-dimensional cubes, analogous to the shadow a cubical frame would cast on a wall if you were to shine a flashlight at it.
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88- Wikipedia has some really cool animations of tesseracts.
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89 (PraCan) – yeah, I saw those! They’re really cool. After watching them for about 10 minutes, my eyes started acting really weird…
Robert – do you know how they actually drop the pumpkin off the building? The pictures from the Koko Bomb showed it on some sort of plank of some sort…
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There is a plank that juts over the edge of the building. They use a broom-like pusher to push it down the plank and off the end. Then, Geronimo!
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Bad news: they don’t make 30″ x 30″ x 30″ boxes. We have a 22 “x 20″ x 22″ box, and they have other various sizes (18 x 18 x 24), (24 x 18 x 24), and (24 x 21 x 48) are the main sizes, but no 30 x 30 x 30 cubes. No cubes of any kind, in fact, except 12″ x 12″ x 12”
Do you think we should abandon the inner box idea? I’m kind of panicking right now, because we’ll have to change the design in some way… We could take a larger box and move one of the sides and attach it with duct-tape, but that wouldn’t be as strong. We could always just put the pumpkin in a box that is a bit bigger, or more rectangular, and use the same design except for the inner box.
*sigh*
This is depressing…
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They also have 24″ x 24″ x 27″ box, which sounds like it might work. That’s what U-Haul has to offer, I think.
I think the best idea might be to use that box, or something similar, and do the same plan except without the inner box. I’m not sure what the inner box would do, and the holes in the boxes might make them less strong. I don’t know. *sigh*
Did you know they made biodegradable packing peanuts? We saw them when looking for boxes…they’re made out of cornstarch and dissolve in water.
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Sorry for the triple post, but all hope is restored! There’s a store a few blocks away that I didn’t know about that (according to their website) has 30-inch cubes!
That makes me very happy. *dances*
I think, though, we’ll just put the inner box in the outer box without attaching it with pantyhose, but we’ll still put the popcorn in pantyhose.
I am unbelievably relieved
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Never mind!
That’s annoying. And no 30″x30″x60″ boxes, either, I suppose?
How about taping two 24″x24″x27″ boxes together to make a 24″x24″x54″ oblong box? A falling object tries to minimize its cross-sectional area, so it would stand a good chance of landing long side down, with plenty of padding. You could even add fins to to the outside to encourage it to fall that way.
The inner box doesn’t have to be much bigger than the pumpkin. A 12-inch or 14-inch cube would do that job.
You might also find a larger variety of sizes at stores that sell boxes for mailing rather than for moving.
What purpose does the inner box serve if you don’t suspend it?
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Hmm. That’s a good question.
I was thinking that it would just even out the impact a bit more. It would also sort of be a “safety net” incase something happens to the outer box. Also, if the popcorn shifts or something, it will ensure there will be some padding around the pumpkin. But I guess we don’t need it. Or we can suspend it. I don’t know…
*will be thinking about it all night*
We’ll be building it tomorrow after school (when THF gets back from her school Environmental trip). My brother and I have some really cool design ideas
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That’s a good answer.
Here’s an odd thought: What if you put your pumpkin in a padded 10″x10″x10″ cubical box and surrounded it with 26 other identical boxes — empty, with no popcorn or peanuts or any other stuffing — all inside the 30″ cube? What do you think would happen when it hit? Would the surrounding boxes absorb too much of the impact, making the pumpkin stop too suddenly? Or would they absorb too little, allowing the pumpkin to hit the ground?
So many interesting designs to think about…
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97. …and so little time.
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So today, my mom went to the store that had 30″ x 30″ x 30″ cubes, but they were out. So she went to another store, which gave her a 30″ x 30″ x 40″ box, or something like that. But when she brought it home and measured it, it was 32″ x 42″ x 28″ which is too big (They gave it to her for free, though, because they thought the whole idea of dropping it off a building was so funny).
So, when I got home from school we went to U-Haul again, and talked to the store manager guy about boxes. We told him the whole story about the drop, etc., and he thought it was really funny. He said that the best way to win was to wrap the pumpkin in bubble wrap, put it in a box, and just drop it.
We liked our popcorn idea, but told him we might try his idea another year. So, we got two 24″ x 24″ x 27″ boxes, and we’ll make some sort of rectangular shape, and possibly make fins. But we’re not sure yet. (The popcorn is popping as I “speak”). We also asked the U-Haul guy about the idea of making a structure out of PVC pipes (on the inside of the box). He said they would almost definitely break, but that we could try it.
And we got a *flamablamablous* pumpkin! It has a circumference of 34 inches, and it weighs approximately 10 pounds–I weighed it on our bathroom scale. It’s really pretty and orange, too. Though that has absolutely *nothing* to do with it.
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Have fun! That’s a lot of popcorn.
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It’s actually going really quickly. My mom can make a LOT of popcorn in about 4 minutes, and we’re making it on the stove, so we can pop zillions of kernals at once
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We’re at the drop! It’s cold and rainy here. About 80 of the 139 entrants have dropped so far. THF thinks there have been only three or four survivors. We’re number 102. Purple Panda and her mother are on top of the building waiting their turn, which should come in half an hour or so. The rest of us have taken temporary shelter in a nearby building, but we’ll be out cheering when the Moment of Truth arrives.
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Go Team MuseBlog! Thanks for checking in.
Will be thinking lots of positive, pumpkin-strengthening thoughts over the next half hour or so.
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We dropped! And splatted! Alas, alas, alas!
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“Like a vapour, the golden orange vision
Shall fade and pass, fade and pass.”
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Awwwwww… Well, still, hooray! That sounded like so much fun…
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We just got home!!
So, here’s the story (as much of it as I can remember, anyway):
Yesterday, I didn’t go to my newspaper meeting because I had to come straight home to get the pumpkin, boxes, popcorn, etc. We bought a pumpkin that was 34 inches in circumference and weighed 10 pounds–it was the *perfect* pumpkin. (We’ll post pictures later). Then, we got boxes from U-Haul and tons of popcorn kernals from the grocery store. When we got home, my mom set to work popping popcorn, and I started to make the pumpkin device (THF had just returned from a week-long school trip and was tired, so went upstairs to watch TV or something).
The pumpkin device involved many things: popcorn-filled pantyhose, paper-bags filled with popcorn, cardboard boxes, a pumpkin, and lots and lots of tape. We finished the device around midnight. I’ll send pictures of each step, plus a diagram, etc. in a little while
This morning, at about 7:30, we packed the pumpkin device into the car and drove off to Morgantown, West Virginia for the Pumpkin Drop at West Virginia University. When we got there, it was POURING rain. So, we got out umbrellas and raincoats, and covered the pumpkin device with a camping tarp.
We waited in line to register for about an hour and a half, and while we were in line we saw many different pumpkin designs–one was a hershey’s kiss, another was a dairy queen ice cream cup. The groups behind us didn’t have any kind of tarp or anything to protect their pumpkin, so we let them share ours. I think, at one point, we had 4 different pumpkin devices (plus a bunch of people) under our tarp, including our pumpkin device. Whenever the line moved forward, we all moved together. It was quite a sight! We have lots of video and pictures of the whole process.
Once we registered, we went into yet another line, and waited for the Pumpkin Drop to begin (it started at 11:00 AM). Robert met us there, and we watched the first pumpkin plummet–it survived! The dropping continued from there. We were #102.
When it was finally time for our pumpkin to drop, my mother and I carried the pumpkin device up into the building. We brought a wagon to wheel the pumpkin on, and it was a very good thing we brought it–it made things much easier. Keep in mind, we had been standing in the rain for over 3 hours, and were very wet and cold.
We (my mom and I) went in the building and stood in another line, for the elevator. We took the freight elevator up to the 10th floor, and carried the device up to the 11th floor, where we stood in line on the roof, in the rain again. There were about three inches of water along the whole roof, so our feet got wet, too.
When it was finally time for us to drop the pumpkin, we set it on the “plank,” and I got to push it off. Going, going, gone. It hit the ground with a thud, and, according to the people who inspected and opened our device, it didn’t make it. I didn’t see it, though.
We came back down and watched the rest of the pumpkins fall. Alas, we weren’t able to retrieve our pumpkin device because they didn’t let you rummage through the trash pile.
We ate a late lunch (it was around 3:00 by then, I think) at Applebees, and then went to Muse, PA. We saw the post office and the elementary school, then stood in the parking lot of the Post Office for awhile and talked about things, such as unions and which type of candy is higher or lower on the totem pole than tootsie rolls.
It was really fun, despite all of the rain and such. We’ll send some pictures soon.
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Purple Panda and Taiwan Hippo Fan,
Could you give me the dimensions of the Koko Zucca, please? I need them for some calculations. I know it weighed 54 pounds.
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It was 24″ x 24″ x 40″
Is that all you need?
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