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Posted On: 10/28/2008

Students sharpen engineering skills by participating in pumpkin chunkin’ presidential exit poll

PlantServices.com

According to the pumpkins, the McCain/Palin presidential ticket will land the White House. That prediction was determined during The Great Heads of Statesville Exit Poll in Statesville, N.C., on Oct. 24. Pie pumpkins, weighing three pounds each, were catapulted from a trebuchet. Official pumpkin chunkin’ rules were used to determine the scores.

The trebuchets were designed and constructed by physics and mechanical engineering students at Mitchell Community College. Artwork on the pumpkins was provided by seventh- and eighth-graders at the American Renaissance Charter School in Statesville.

The Great Heads of Statesville Exit Poll was a media preview for the Crossroads Pumpkin Fest to be held in Statesville on Saturday, Nov. 1. The festival will include a pumpkin chunking competition from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. during which the McCrory/Perdue race will be predicted. A street festival with pie-eating, pumpkin smashing and pumpkin bowling contests will be held throughout the day in downtown Statesville.

While this is interesting news in presidential election season, the real story is what happened behind the scenes. Click on the video link below to see the group of kids who learned how to build a trebuchet, pushed their physics teacher to help optimize performance of this homemade contraption and, most importantly, got turned on to engineering. This type of experiential education can help develop some of the core skill sets needed to advance our future economy. Pumpkin chunkin' is silly and fun, but the validity of the prediction is not merely as important as the activity of getting younger generations excited about building, designing and formulating new approaches to solve problems. All of these students plan on pursuing engineering careers and one is working on securing an internship at NASA.

The results of the contest are as follows.

Distances were added together for the presidential contests. Senator John McCain’s pumpkin spun to the right and bounced 81 yards from the catapult, while Governor Sarah Palin’s red lipstick-clad pumpkin initially veered to the left, but pulled back to the right before landing 85 yards. On the Democratic side, both pumpkins stayed true to the left. The Senator Barack Obama pumpkin flew 79 yards, while Senator Joe Biden’s gourd sailed 83 yards.

The total distance was 166 yards for the Republican ticket and 162 for the Democrat.

In the North Carolina bid for the U.S. Senate seat, the pumpkin for Kay Hagan, aimed for the left while it soundly defeated incumbent Elizabeth Dole 85-79 yards, whose pumpkin leaded to the right. The pumpkins reinforced that the gubnatorial race between Lt. Governor Beverly Perdue and Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory is a toss-up. Both pumpkins were hurled 86 yards, meaning a run-off needed. Like the senatorial race, the gubernatorial  pumpkins stayed true to their respective party lines.

The contest was scheduled to include other races, but heavy rains ended the event.

View the video clip at http://www2.statesville.com/video/2008/oct/24/great-heads-statesville-exit-poll/.