punkin chunkin 2008 recap

[swingchickie]

the 2008 punkin chunkin competition was a hoot. standing outside in a massive field in the freezing cold, watching giant machines fling pumpkins up in the air, is something everyone should do once in their lifetime. :) it was an interesting crowd, lots of flannel and not many teeth... with the occasional mythbusters-type machine nerd (including our gang) mixed in. there are 3 categories: centrifugal, air cannon, and trebuchet (slingshot)... we missed most of the centrifugal category, which is a bummer because they were terrifying and cool... i didn't get any video of them. :( but we caught the air cannons and trebuchets, which rocked. i took some video (see below), but it's impossible to really show the scope of it... the pumpkins shoot out so fast, they're immediately a teeny speck way up in the sky and you can't even see them with the naked eye, let alone catch it all on camera. but this at least gives you an idea of how powerful the machines are:

air cannon:

trebuchet:

Comments

[boutell.livejournal.com]

Hee! You got me curious— here's video from '07 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isJpbv2Fh4A) of a centrifugal.

[swingchickie.livejournal.com]

yeah, that's wild, isn't it??? at first it's going slow and you're like, "oh that's cool"... then it starts to really speed up and you want to run for the hills.