It almost worked! Another team’s capsule with an almost identical design did deliver its pumpkin intact. I think it was the weight that did us in. The Bazucca weighed 54 pounds, just 6 pounds under the limit. The more weight, the harder it hits. If the popcorn had been a little fluffier, I think we’d have made it.
I would have liked to use Midnight Fiddler’s idea of the popcorn without kernals. But we couldn’t find any, and taking the kernals out of 54 pounds of popcorn would be insanely time-consuming.
Rebecca – thanks for working on the pictures! You’re a photoshop genius
The sixth set of pictures (in a turquoise border) shows a bunch of people under our tarp. We brought a camping tarp in case it rained (good thing we did–it was pouring almost the entire time), and we shared it with the group behind us. At one point, we had 4 pumpkin devices under it (including ours), plus a bunch of people!
The eighth and ninth set of pictures are the pumpkin’s retrieval–the ground crew were amused by our pantyhose-popcorn idea.
If we do this again, it might be worth shopping around for an extra-strong pumpkin. Some varieties are reputed to be tougher than others. I’ve heard that pumpkin-chuckers (people who amuse themselves by shooting pumpkins out of cannons) swear by a pure-white breed of pumpkin with shells a few inches thick.
I wonder whether Paul Baker has ever tried pumpkin chucking. I’m sure he’d be into it if he lived in America. It sounds like just his cup of tea.
5~ I was being facetious when I said that! Did you put in the newspaper? I didn’t see it in the pictures, so I’m assuming not.
Next time, perhaps we copuld invest in some of the corn packing peanuts that they make now. They are light, pre-popped, completly dissolve when water hits them and edible. Not tasty, though. I wish I could have gone, it looks like so much fun.
Mom just looks at the pictures, her opinion is that putting the popcorn in pantyhose made it too hard to to cushin the pumkin. Also, the newspaper between the layers is essential.
OH! OH! OH! When I get a computer agin, I can send pictures of me carving pummellos! (There weren’t any pumpkins.) I just need to convince my mom not to delete the piccies.
Too bad they wouldn’t let us go rummage around in the trash pile–we could have saved all the popcorn! If it wasn’t edible we could have fed it to squirrels or birds. Do they eat popcorn?
27- A pumpkin drop is an engineering contest, basically. Teams design and build a device, usually a box I think, that holds a pumpkin. This box is then dropped off a 30 story building. If the pumpkin goes splat, you try again next year. If the pumpkin stats intact, you win! This was made by Purple Panda and Taiwan Hippo Fan.
0
0
Comments are closed.
Patience, Please
This site is under reconstruction and will look strange for a while. We regret the inconvenience.
Huzzah! I love it. I especially
That is…A LOT of popcorn! *eats* I’m shocked that great Koko bazucca didn’t save the pumpkin! It looks big enough to cushion a small person!
Red-tailed HAWK the Sad about the Pumpkin
Oh well. There’s always next year! And this design was brilliant! It’s too bad it didn’t hold!
It looks like pwnage, too, so it was well worth it!
It’s a pumkipuss!
It almost worked! Another team’s capsule with an almost identical design did deliver its pumpkin intact. I think it was the weight that did us in. The Bazucca weighed 54 pounds, just 6 pounds under the limit. The more weight, the harder it hits. If the popcorn had been a little fluffier, I think we’d have made it.
I would have liked to use Midnight Fiddler’s idea of the popcorn without kernals. But we couldn’t find any, and taking the kernals out of 54 pounds of popcorn would be insanely time-consuming.
Rebecca – thanks for working on the pictures! You’re a photoshop genius
The sixth set of pictures (in a turquoise border) shows a bunch of people under our tarp. We brought a camping tarp in case it rained (good thing we did–it was pouring almost the entire time), and we shared it with the group behind us. At one point, we had 4 pumpkin devices under it (including ours), plus a bunch of people!
The eighth and ninth set of pictures are the pumpkin’s retrieval–the ground crew were amused by our pantyhose-popcorn idea.
If we do this again, it might be worth shopping around for an extra-strong pumpkin. Some varieties are reputed to be tougher than others. I’ve heard that pumpkin-chuckers (people who amuse themselves by shooting pumpkins out of cannons) swear by a pure-white breed of pumpkin with shells a few inches thick.
I wonder whether Paul Baker has ever tried pumpkin chucking. I’m sure he’d be into it if he lived in America. It sounds like just his cup of tea.
5~ I was being facetious when I said that! Did you put in the newspaper? I didn’t see it in the pictures, so I’m assuming not.
Next time, perhaps we copuld invest in some of the corn packing peanuts that they make now. They are light, pre-popped, completly dissolve when water hits them and edible. Not tasty, though. I wish I could have gone, it looks like so much fun.
Mom just looks at the pictures, her opinion is that putting the popcorn in pantyhose made it too hard to to cushin the pumkin. Also, the newspaper between the layers is essential.
As comic relief, however, the pantyhose were invaluable.
9- Yeah, the picture of the guy who’s holding the pantyhose like it’s a dead rat cracked me up.
9/10~ Yes, I can only imagine….
(10) Me, too. Especially in contrast to the photo of Purple Panda holding up stuffed stockings that are almost as tall as she is.
I like the pumpkin-octopus looking picture.
7 (MF) – the dissolve-in-water ones made out of cornstarch might create a problem, though. It rained the *entire* time we were there.
8 (MF) – We put cardboard between layers.
13 (MF) – Yes, that was THF’s creation
(12) It’s hard to believe that Pan and the ground crewman are the same species.
OH! OH! OH! When I get a computer agin, I can send pictures of me carving pummellos! (There weren’t any pumpkins.) I just need to convince my mom not to delete the piccies.
14~ yes, but so does popcorn. And, I mentioned that feature because of the regulations that the packing had to be bio-degradible.
Cool photos! Good effort! Clever for thinking of popcorn as filling!
Just curious: is there any rule that says the container can’t be 11 stories high?
Yes. Containers may be no bigger than 30″x30″x60″ and may weigh at most 60 pounds.
That *would* be fun, though. Completely pointless, but fun. And it would be quite a sight driving that to Morgantown
20 – ROTFL XD
who would want to smash a perfectly good pumpkin when you can eat it?
22 (greekgurl) – Well, we hope it won’t smash, but there’s only so much you can do when it falls 11 stories…
Awesomely Awesome!
22~It’s fun! But I agree, I like eating pumpkins, too.
Too bad they wouldn’t let us go rummage around in the trash pile–we could have saved all the popcorn! If it wasn’t edible we could have fed it to squirrels or birds. Do they eat popcorn?
Um, I feel ignorant… What was this?
27 – A pumpkin drop, of course!
27- A pumpkin drop is an engineering contest, basically. Teams design and build a device, usually a box I think, that holds a pumpkin. This box is then dropped off a 30 story building. If the pumpkin goes splat, you try again next year. If the pumpkin stats intact, you win! This was made by Purple Panda and Taiwan Hippo Fan.