They used hay and balloons, stuffed animals and carpets, and just about anything else that would protect their pumpkins as students from all over southwestern Pennsylvania and West Virginia took part in the annual Pumpkin Drop held recently at West Virginia University in Morgantown.
“The kids have a lot of fun doing this every year,” Yough kindergarten through eighth grade gifted teacher Mandy Pazer said of the students who participated. “It's a great way for them to hone their engineering skills and a fun way for them to apply them.”
Yough took six teams from the junior and senior high schools and was one of many schools that bused students to the event, which welcomed a record 327 teams for the 27th annual drop.
All teams that entered paid a fee of $10 and were given a strict list of rules that had to be applied to each pumpkin dropped.
The idea of the competition is for a team of four to design an apparatus that would house a pumpkin and cushion it in some way to keep from breaking when dropped from the 11-story Engineering and Science Building on campus.
Pumpkins had to be at least 10 inches or more in diameter with the entire apparatus including pumpkin not to exceed 60 pounds.
All pumpkins were released in a free-fall manner. The pumpkin that landed without breaking and closest to the target on the ground won the grand prize of $100.
Pumpkin containers could not contain liquids, wood, metal, PVC piping, glass or commercial packing products such as packing “peanuts,” but that did not deter the students from creating fun ways to house their pumpkins for the fall.
“We used a plush turtle,” Yough student Jake Sever, 14, said of the outside area of their pumpkin housing. “We had egg cartons inside with pillow around it.”
Sever's pumpkin was one that survived but landed more than 2 feet away from the target.
“I was happy with how we did,” Sever said, adding that he hopes to return next year and plans to use a similar design. “I thought our idea was pretty solid.”
The first-place team was from Frankfort High School in Ridgeley W.Va.
The event is sponsored annually by the American society of Mechanical Engineering Chapter at WVU. All proceeds from the event go to the Ronald McDonald House in Morgantown.
Marilyn Forbes is a contributing writer for Trib Total Media.
