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EPS Hosts City of Elgin Punkin Chunkin


 Story image 1_0
4af84cccbb066 Punkin Chunkin!
Justin & JJ discussing the design
Anthony on the plasma cutter
More discussion
Justin the welder
Practice launching
The counterweight bar
Pope John setting up
Justin ready for competition
The two teams waiting to start
The two trebuchet designs
Elgin's trebuchet in action
Lots of donated pumpkins
EPS watching
The trophy!
The bar is bent!
The two teams
EPS team of Justin Kalhoff, Anthony Hemenway, Devin Brown, Justin Reestman, and & Ms. Rethmeier
Back to the shop
Celebrate!
Punkin Chunkin!

Intro to Engineering designs trebuchet

On a beautiful Friday afternoon, Elgin Public School hosted a Punkin Chunkin competition with Pope John. Both schools, including St. Boniface, came out to watch two trebuchets go head to head to see who could launch a 10 lb pumpkin the farthest. The Introduction to Engineering class at EPS had about six weeks to design and build a trebuchet. The design team includes Devin Brown, Anthony Hemenway, Justin Kalhoff, and Justin Reestman.


 Story image 2_0
4af84cccbb066 Ms. Rethmeier introducing the EPS team
First launch
Reloading
Trebuchet in action
Reloading again
PJ reloading
EPS Elementary enjoying the show
A mess of pumpkins
A dead snake entertains St. Boniface kids
Enjoying the show.
Ms. Rethmeier introducing the EPS team

Through their design research the students learned the difference between a catapult and a trebuchet and decided the trebuchet would provide the greatest launching power and distance. The first design was scrapped due to insufficient materials but a new design emerged when some leftover metal structures intended for the dump were modified for the base of the trebuchet. Most of the rest of the materials came from scrap wood and iron at the student’s houses or farms. The resourcefulness of the students proved to be big money and time savers. Overall the students spent less than $10 to build their trebuchet. The Pope John trebuchet was from previous years with modifications for the competition. The competition was close but Pope John walked away the winner this year. All of the students involved in the competition learned a great deal about the design process and should be proud of their efforts!

E-mail Article

EPS Hosts City of Elgin Punkin Chunkin

Paula Jensen

Nov 11, 2009

What a great project! A lot of thought and physical work went into each trebuchet! Awesome job!
Sara Walsh
EPS science teacher

Nov 12, 2009

It was so much fun to hear the excitement surrounding this event! It was even more fun to watch the flying pumpkins! It was evident that the students put in 6 weeks of thinking and hard work (and a little frustration at times)-- it really paid off!
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Elgin Public Schools 101 N. 4th St. P.O Box 399 Elgin, NE  68636

402-843-2455 Fax: 402-843-2475

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