Issue 1, Volume 13

GRAVITY
versus
INVENTIONS
Eighth grade science classes test
their knowledge of force, gravity
by dropping pumpkins
C
Story by Nick Jackson
Crack!
Eighth grade students mourn as the
pumpkins break when they hit the
concrete while others cheer because
their pumpkin survived the seven-meter
drop.
The Pumpkin Drop occurred on the
30th and 31st of October. It is a physics
challenge in which people created a
design with only popsicle sticks, string,
tape, a trash bag, and of course, the mini
-pumpkin. They then dropped the
pumpkin off of a seven-meter high
ledge. They also tried to throw the
pumpkin into a hula-hoop.
The rules of the Pumpkin Drop
were that students only had a limited
amount of supplies. The pumpkin was
not a normal-sized pumpkin, it had to
be 2-5 inches in width. Students also had
to have an army man on your pumpkin.
“It took us about 30 minutes to
complete our cage,” said Mitchell
Langdon, and eighth grade student.
Langdon’s team created a cage out of
the popsicle sticks.
If the army man did not hit the
ground and the pumpkin did not break,
then students completed the challenge.
But if a student’s army man did hit the
ground or the pumpkin did break, then
the challenge was not completed.
Billy Kepler participated in the
pumpkin drop.
“I thought the Pumpkin Drop was
fun because I enjoyed being able to drop
pumpkins off of a ledge and watch some
break. It was also kind of hard because
the Scotch tape was coming loose
because it could not really support the
pumpkin’s weight.”
Once the kids were done with
dropping their pumpkins and throwing
them into the hula-hoop, they wrote
down the data that they collected.
The main focus of the Pumpkin
Drop was the effects of gravity on the
pumpkin.
Photos by Caroline Ingraham and Will
Spraetz