On those brisk days just after Halloween, there are two types of people in the world: those who look wistfully at the remnants of pumpkins smashed in the street and think of how pretty they would have looked on a front porch, and those punks who do the smashing.
And then there are those who take pumpkin smashing to a whole new level (and I’m not talking about Billy Corgan).
It’s called punkin chunkin. The idea is simple – create a machine to hurl an 8 to 10-pound pumpkin farther than the other punkin chunkers in the competition. The competition got its start in Millsboro, Delaware, where the annual Punkin Chunkin World Championships were held this past weekend.
While this Delaware event is a little far away to be covered in my community column, there is a local group based out of Norwell, Mass., that has just returned from its seventh annual trip down to the corporate capital of the East for the event. The Fibonacci Team, consisting of four principal members and an array of supporters, has just brought home its second champion trophy for the adult catapult division. The winning throw was 2862 feet. Yes, that pumpkin flew over half a mile.
“It really does disappear from sight when we throw it,” said Fibonacci member Richard Arnold.
Obviously, the catapult that achieves this distance is no ordinary machine. It is a highly specialized pumpkin hurling device that uses nitrogen-powered hydraulic pistons to spin the arm of the catapult. It stands over thirty feet tall discounting the arm at the top of the swing—that adds another sixteen feet. But more than size and power, this machine achieves its stellar performance through careful design. The team, which includes two engineers, sought the advice of several consultants when developing the design. The cam design that drives the arm was contoured based on the Fibonacci sequence, hence the group’s name.
But punkin chunkin goes beyond catapults. The event is divided into seven adult divisions and several youth divisions. The Adult Air Cannon division usually achieves the greatest distances. The Second Amendment Team, which uses specially grown pumpkins from Cuba, has taken three championships and achieved the world record throw of 4434 feet.
Sounds intense? Absolutely, and the competition is growing each year. The estimated attendance at this year’s three-day event was over 40,000. There were 100 machines represented in this year’s competition, and this was after officials turned away 60 applicants.
So, how did this group of Massachusetts engineers, day care owners, and machinists get involved with this unconventional competition?
“Eight years ago, we saw a column in the Wall Street Journal about the competition, so we decided to go down and check it out. We came home and developed a machine and returned the next year as competitors,” Arnold said.
They make modifications to their design each year before returning to Delaware. Their championship throws in 2003 and 2005 both achieved new world records for their class. The group of friends says they return each year to spend some time outside and for the camaraderie of the event. “And we like the brain challenge,” Arnold said.
In addition to the design challenges, each throw must be carefully executed to avoid a “pie,” which, in chunkin talk, is what you get when the pumpkin explodes in the machine before the launch. “We call it Delaware snow.”
Leave it to Delaware to come up with such an intensely trivial competition. And leave it to a bunch of New Englanders to take this event to the next level. When asked if he ever encountered any criticism about his dedication to such a silly event as punkin chunkin Arnold replied “Some people may think it, but we’ve never received any criticism. Most are amazed.”
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