Lessons of the flying pumpkins

We have no fear of the future, knowing that kids who can figure out ways to smash pumpkins will inherit it.

pumpkin
(Video from Worthington Daily Globe)

Southwest Minnesota Christian High School hosted its seventh annual Rock River Pumpkin Festival on Saturday, the Worthington Daily Globe says.

Teams, including one made up of community members, built trebuchets to see which one could throw a pumpkin farthest.

You can learn a lot from kids throwing pumpkins.

Not all problems were welcomed by the shop class. During the competition, after the first throw went 124.1 feet, the winch on the shop class’s trebuchet was stripped while trying to crank down the arm.

Class members started to brainstorm ways to fix it. They were able use a student’s pickup truck to pull the arm down, but the vehicle couldn’t lower it as much as was hoped. The team’s second throw traveled approximately a quarter of the distance of the first.

The shop class team decided to not throw for the last two rounds. Instead, the team members started helping the physics class students with their trebuchet.

“They’ve learned a lot about teamwork,” Carrie Top, the physics teacher, said.