Pumpkin Chunking

Got a surprise last night watching the Pumpkin Chunking contest. Dawn Thompson from Delaware won this years contest. As soon as I saw her face I knew I had seen her before. Had to think a little to figure out where. It was at our annual Halifax County Heritage and Antique Machinery show. She and her husband pulled a smaller pumpkin cannon from Delaware down here and set it up for folks to take target practice at a 90 dodge caravan. Our show is in May and pumpkins were out of season so they used water melons. Also onions and used it like a shotgun. I tried to hit that van with 3 shots. Put one in front about 20 ft. and 2 went over it by a foot and it was sitting about 250 yards in a field. I was one of the first to shoot as I walked up about the time they just got set up.
I remember them because they were such nice folks. Came back around later in the day and talked to them a while. By then the van was tore up. LOL Lots of folks shot the thing and it was fun. Mighty nice of them to come down here so folks could play with the cannon. Took a lot of work to build it and make it safe and was pretty powerful. The one she won with is about 4 times larger judging the size it looked on TV.

Adult Female Air
Place Team Name Round 1 Round 2 Round 3
1st Hormone Blaster 3755.65 0.00 0.00
2nd Dragon Lady 2784.85 3233.37 0.00
3rd Chunkin for The Cure 3181.97 2759.78 0.00
4th Bad Hair Day 1860.63 2549.22 2173.53
5th Let's Bounce 0.00 0.00 0.00

If anyone on this site knows these folks, tell them they have fans in Halifax co. Va. Go Dawn!!!

Yea, Me and my son watched the show after the football game. Wasnt she the one they were makeing fun of for haveing such a small cannnon and then she told them it was velocity?

I thought it was very interesting. A lot of ingenuity and time making those things. The ones doing the centrifugal (spinning).. looked dangerous for sure. Mounted on the back of a truck, had the whole truck hopping. I wonder how they time the release to make the pumpkin fly the right direction?

I forgot to record it....

Aaron