Student Teams Tout Their Punkin’ Chunkin’ Trebuchets

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What’s more competitive than a Halloween costume contest? A punkin’ chunkin’ contest! As we announced today, Team ETHOS, a SolidWorks hobbyist team, is a contender in The World Championship Punkin Chunkin Association (WCPCA). The team used SolidWorks 3D design software to create its catapult for World Championship Punkin’ Chunkin’ Contest in Delaware this week.

You can check out the release for more details—but while we’re on the topic of punkin’ chunkin’, we want to give a shout out to a couple of our student users.

The Mt. Olive High School Robotics Team of Flanders, NJ, won the Grand Champion’s Award for the longest shot in the annual New Jersey Last Fling Pumpkin Sling in 2011, for the second year running. This year, the team won with a distance of 959 feet—an impressive showing—with a catapult designed in SolidWorks. Next up is the World Championship Punkin’ Chunkin’ Contest, where the Mt. Olive team will face off against other student teams from around the country.

This Wall Street Journal article chronicles the team’s journey and even gives SolidWorks some love in the slide show. Thanks to David Bodmer of Mt. Olive High School for keeping us up to date on the team’s accomplishments, and how SolidWorks helped make them happen. Best of luck to you in November!

You may remember Assabet Valley Technical High School of Marlboro, Mass. from Let’s Go Design Project 2. The students of the precision machining and automated manufacturing department, led by Bryant LaFlamme, are back with a catapult of their own—check out the attached video testing the height and reach of 400 lbs of weight (click through to the article for a video). Pretty impressive work, profiled last weekend in the Milford Daily News, and also we’re rooting for the team at Assabet Valley at the World Championship Punkin’ Chunkin’ Contest this week!

We’d love to hear about your homemade catapults, trebuchets, slingshots and whatever else you’ve created to fling things—tell us in the comments!

 

P.S – If you want to see how SolidWorks and SolidWorks Simulation could help you design your own punkin’ chunkin’ machine, check out the new video on our website.

Matthew West

SolidWorks alumnus. I like plate reverb, Rat pedals, Thai curry, New Weird fiction, my kids, Vespas, Jazzmasters, my wife & Raiders of the Lost Ark. Not necessarily in that order.