Engineering students pitch pumpkins for the fun of science

”Pumpkinators” Paul Heller, left, James Nitschke (out of view), Abe Reinhart, Andy Nitschke, Greg Trusso and Chirag Rao catapult a pumpkin in UR competition. One of their launches flew 211 feet. The pumpkin launch was the work of the campus chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

(November 12, 2002) — ”Pthabt.”
That is the sound of a pumpkin smacking the ground in a shower of seeds and guts.
That is the sound of science.
Pumpkins were slung, pitched and launched skyward by the dozens Monday at University of Rochester as the campus chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers put together its first-ever Jack-O-Launcher competition.

“It’s a way to get engineering out of the classroom,” said Dan Nathan-Roberts, 20, a mechanical engineering major from Berkeley, Calif. “We just thought it’d be fun.”

The rules were simple -- devise a contraption that would send a pumpkin flying. No chemical propulsion allowed, so the grassy quadrangle outside UR’s Wilson Commons was lined with an array of various catapults bristling with combinations of springs, elastic and weights.

“It’s the simplest thing we could come up with,” said Ben Sternberg, 21, a senior from Owego, Tioga County, as he looked at a contraption of wood and bungee cords.

At the other end of the spectrum was the stealth bomber-like launcher of sleek black steel and rubber tubing put together by four staffers at UR’s instrument machine shop. “It’s engineering on the run,” said Ken Adams of Conesus, a 27-year UR employee.

Some pumpkins flew in high, graceful arcs before shattering on the ground below. A few barely cleared their launchers. And the occasional pumpkin rolled across the lawn like a big, lumpy bocce ball.

“If we’d just got to the stairs, it would have just gone,” said Greg Trusso, 11, of Pittsford, gesturing to his team’s pumpkin that rolled 70 yards across the quad and into the side of a nearby dorm building, not far from a staircase leading deeper into campus. His team was made up of family and friends of one UR engineering professor.

Also competing were two teams of students from area high schools, brought there by a state-funded pre-engineering program run by UR and the Baden Street Settlement. The goal is to get minority youths interested in science and engineering.

Engineering “sounds fun because I like math a lot,” said Reggie Jones, 14, a freshman at East High School in Rochester. “And there’s a lot of math.”