[2176] in Humor
HUMOR: Halloween Special
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sharalee M. Field)
Fri Oct 31 09:23:36 1997
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 1997 09:12:06 -0500
To: mowu@MIT.EDU, mgshea@aol.com, wheger@wbc-architects.com,
Kris_Kelly@notes.pw.com, jbran18610@aol.com, dunbar@MIT.EDU,
dahv@MIT.EDU, jsquill@MIT.EDU, mtsai@bqa.com, immer@MIT.EDU,
humor@MIT.EDU, celia_kent@harvard.edu,
Maryellen Fitzgibbon <mfitzgib@fas.harvard.edu>
From: "Sharalee M. Field" <sharalee_field@harvard.edu>
>X-Sender: draco@po7.mit.edu
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>Date: Fri, 31 Oct 1997 01:44:54 -0500
>To: senior-house@MIT.EDU
>From: "Christian (Drake) Baekkelund" <draco@MIT.EDU>
> >By MARK ROBICHAUX Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
> >
> >MORTON, Ill. -- Ponder this: Will a pumpkin, as it nears the speed of
> >sound, turn into pie in the sky?
> >
> >In a machine shop in a sea of cornfields here in a place that calls itself
> >the Pumpkin Capital of the World, this is not a theoretical question. For
> >months now, a team of volunteers has worked earnestly on an effort to send
> >a gourd soaring at Mach I.
> >
> >Their invention is an 18-ton, 100-foot cannon made of 10-inch-diameter
> >plastic pipe, powered by compressed air and mounted on an old cement
> >mixer. Dubbed the Aludium Q36 Pumpkin Modulator, it has already set a
> >world distance record, flinging a pumpkin 2,710 feet -- at a velocity of
> >more than 600 miles per hour, literally faster than some speeding bullets.
> >
> >At the speed of sound, minimally about 750 mph, the distance record could
> >easily be shattered, assuming the pumpkin doesn't shatter first. For this
> >team of self-described "high-tech rednecks," this is a matter of some
> >urgency and pride, says Matt Parker, a Morton businessman and a team
> >leader. For the team is, at the moment, the undisputed champion of the
> >arcane sport known colloquially to its practitioners as "punkin'
> >chunkin'."
> >
> >On Nov. 1, all eyes will be on the Q36 when it defends its title as World
> >Champion Punkin' Chunker in Lewes, a small town on the Delaware coast.
> >
> >For the past 11 years, pumpkin tossers, dragging all manner of
> >contraptions, have converged there to vie for bragging rights in a variety
> >of pumpkin-tossing categories -- human powered, centrifugal, catapult and
> >air cannons. Sponsored by the Roadhouse Steak Joint, a Lewes restaurant,
> >the contest derives from an anvil-throwing game once played here; how the
> >anvil evolved into a pumpkin seems to be lost to history.
> >
> >The modern contest's rules are clear, however: Pumpkins must weigh 8 to
> >10 pounds, leave the machine intact and not be propelled by explosives.
> >
> >Like the rapid advance in, say, computer technology, pumpkin-tossing
> >prowess has improved exponentially since the first contest in 1986
> >produced a throw of 50 feet. By 1989, large-scale centrifugals,
> >essentially giant slings, were launching pumpkins more than 600 feet, a
> >mark that had doubled by 1993. In 1994, the first serious air cannon
> >appeared and shot a pumpkin more than 2,500 feet. A Delaware-made air
> >cannon named the "Mello Yello" beat that mark with a 2,655-foot shot in
> >1995, only to be bested by the Q36 last year.
> >
> >Of course the cannons, though they have the longest range, don't attract
> >all the attention. Last year, a catapult competitor rigged up two
> >telephone poles planted in the ground, fitted huge rubber bands to them
> >and fired a pumpkin from this Paul Bunyanesque slingshot -- pulled taut
> >by a power winch -- 493 feet.
> >
> >Still, the serious pumpkin tossers gravitate to the cannons, and here in
> >this small Illinois town, pumpkins are serious business. Area farms supply
> >about 80% of the nation's canned pumpkin through Nestle SA's Libby's plant
> >here. When the chamber of commerce director, Scott Witzig, heard about
> >the Lewes contest in early 1996, he issued a call to arms at the chamber's
> >annual dinner: Build a gun to bring honor to Morton's pumpkin heritage.
> >
> >The challenge was taken up by Mr. Parker, a polite, 28-year-old vice
> >president at Parker Fabrication Inc., a family-owned company that builds
> >industrial-exhaust systems. Soon, he and some tinkering friends were
> >swapping sketches on napkins in coffee shops. "It sounded kind of dumb at
> >first," he says, "but pretty soon, that's all we talked about."
> >
> >In a month's time, a group formed and built a machine largely from scrap
> >parts, often working into the early morning at the shop of Rod Litwiller,
> >a crew member. Friends and neighbors stopped in to help. Only when a crude
> >version of the machine was unveiled at the Morton pumpkin festival in
> >September last year did the builders get an idea of the machine's power.
> >
> >The first shot flew out of sight into a cornfield. "We thought, 'This has
> >potential,' " says Chuck Heerde, a 32-year-old Parker employee and crew
> >member.
> >
> >High Expectations
> >
> >The Q36, when erected, resembles a crane. It is hand-loaded from the rear,
> >aimed using hydraulic cylinders and a turret that was once an old cement
> >mixer and fired with the push of a red button that releases a charge of
> >compressed air. Painted military green, the gun was named after a weapon
> >used by Marvin the Martian, a pint-sized alien in a Warner Bros. cartoon.
> >
> >Ferocious as the Q36 looked, the Morton pumpkin crew still wasn't sure
> >what made a pumpkin fly farthest. Too much pressure too fast, and the
> >pumpkin bursts apart in the barrel. Too slow, and velocity suffers. Pat
> >Parker, Matt Parker's father, contacted Max Teasdale, a friend who teaches
> >engineering mechanics at Bradley University in nearby Peoria. An avid
> >skeet shooter, Mr. Teasdale said he had just completed a ballistics
> >analysis of shotgun pellets. "I asked him: 'Can you modify that for a
> >10-pound pumpkin?'" says the elder Mr. Parker. "He was silent for
> >second. Then he smiled."
> >
> >Mr. Teasdale modified the ballistics program to compensate for a pumpkin
> >flying through an 80-foot barrel in hopes of plotting the best trajectory.
> >The computer tabulates, among other things, the weight and number of
> >sections in a pumpkin (usually 10), the pressure and temperature of the
> >air in the tank, the barometric pressure, pumpkin spin and barrel
> >inclination. Still, Mr. Teasdale concedes that "pumpkins are an unreliable
> >projectile."
> >
> >Undeterred, the Morton crew packed up the Q36 and hitched it to "The
> >Blackbird," a black and silver GMC bus fitted with a diesel engine and
> >front end welded together by Mr. Heerde. When the Q36 rumbled into the
> >fairgrounds in Lewes for last year's contest, however, more experienced
> >cannon makers were prepared to blow it off. But, after its first pumpkin
> >blew apart in the barrel, the Q36 blew the competition away. Its winning
> >shot of 2,710 feet broke the existing record by 55 feet.
> >
> >It also narrowly missed a Ford Mustang in the parking lot. This could have
> >been serious: In a demonstration earlier in the day, the Q36 had blown a
> >pumpkin-size hole in a half-inch thick sheet of plywood 500 feet away.
> >
> >Giving No Ground
> >
> >Word of the Q36 has spread like pumpkin butter. On the Punkin' Chunkin'
> >Web site, one reviewer called the debut of the Q36 "awe-inspiring." Harry
> >"Captain Speed" Lackhove, a Delaware competitor whose Mello Yello cannon
> >held the previous world record, has vowed to come out of retirement to
> >challenge the Q36 at this year's contest. Mr. Lackhove, 72, says he is
> >cooking up a high-tech firing device based upon the designs of a
> >California race-car mechanic and predicts, "We expect to set a record that
> >won't fall for years." Which is why the Q36 crew vows to send a pumpkin
> >flying at Mach I soon. But Mr. Teasdale, the physics professor, tempers
> >the crew's ambitions with reality. Compressed air and computer-aided
> >trajectories can send the pumpkin sailing just up to the sound barrier,
> >he says. But he doesn't think it can be broken without the boost of an
> >explosive charge. And no one quite knows if a pumpkin can stay intact at
> >the speed of sound.
> >
> >Still, practice makes perfect. On a recent fall afternoon, the Q36 crew
> >took the cannon to Goshen, Ind., for a rare public demonstration at the
> >grand opening of a subdivision called Clover Trails. A horn sounded across
> >the cornfields as the barrel of the Q36 rose ominously and, with a loud
> >"foop," fired a pumpkin. This was a low-power shot, and it sailed perhaps
> >1,200 feet. Soon, cars pulled over and a crowd of about 100 materialized.
> >Loud applause and laughter erupted after every shot.
> >
> >Between shots, a farmer walked up and asked, "How far can she go?" "We
> >can put a hole in that silo over there," said Mr. Heerde. "Oh, don't do
> >that," the farmer said. "That's my silo."
> >
> >http://www.atbeach.com/announce/pumkin.html
>
>
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