AFLCMC hosts 17th annual 'Pumpkin Chuck'

  • Published
  • By Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Public Affairs
The "Pumpkin Chuck" is a fall tradition for AFLCMC. On Saturday, October 15, AFLCMC welcomed Airmen and community members to the 17th annual event, held on the grounds of the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. 

Produced by the AFLCMC Engineering Directorate, the family-friendly event helps teach kids about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) career-fields. Registered teams in three classes use machines to launch pumpkins across the sky. The registered teams all created their own machines as part of the competition. 

The video below shows some of the torsion catapults and baskets of pumpkins ready to fly. It also introduces you to some AFLCMC engineers and explains their thoughts behind the importance of outreach events like the pumpkin chuck. 

"The pumpkin chuck gives us an opportunity to share with the community a lot of STEM events we have," explains Jackie Janning-Lask, SES, Director of AFLCMC Engineering Directorate. "This [event] gives students and families the opportunity to see what pumpkin chucking is all about."

Events like the annual Pumpkin Chuck help students learn about force, motion, angles, ratios and teamwork. Teams used catapults in three different classes, with different sized pumpkins for each. The largest pumpkins were "chucked" from the Class A mechanical machines. Team ETHOS, a group of engineers based at WPAFB, created the only Class-A machine.