By Greg Lehman
Daily Titan Staff Writer

Air-pressured cannon, “Pumpkin Lobber,” fires off a test run at the Pumpkin Launch held at Cal State Fullerton’s Titan Stadium Saturday. Photo by Chad Uemura.

The Titan Stadium scoreboard at Cal State Fullerton received significant damage from a flying pumpkin at Pumpkin Launch 2009 on Saturday. The cost of the damages caused by the pumpkin, shot from an air-pressured cannon named “Pumpkin Lobber,” have not yet been estimated.

After testing each device with medicine balls earlier in the morning, each team began to launch pumpkins at 11:30 a.m. Leslie Perovich, vice president of marketing for the Discovery Science Center, said the medicine balls were important. “They do them first with medicine balls so that they don’t splat,” Perovich said, “because obviously when the pumpkins go it’s one use only.”

The Pumpkin Lobber designed by CSUF biology major Bobby Malanga, 23, went first and fired a pumpkin and medicine ball at the targets on the field.

The pumpkin shot over the field and hit the right side of the Titan scoreboard. A hole was blown through the sign and metal bent backwards in a puckered opening. Half of the pumpkin exploded on the board while a spray of pulp and pumpkin shell flew over the walkway behind the stadium. Some pieces of the pumpkin even made it as far as the roadway encircling the stadium. The medicine ball crashed through the Pepsi ad in the lower right corner of the board.

The crowd erupted with excitement and chants of “lobber” immediately afterward. Keith Brush, education director at the Discovery Science Center, announced to the crowd, “OK, that is something we did not want to see.”

The powerful shot instantly disqualified the cannon due to safety concerns, which led to hearty booing from the crowd and more chanting of “lobber” and “Let’s go lobber, let’s go!”

Malanga said that the Pumpkin Lobber was still an unfinished project and that he wished they could shoot it again.

“We’ve been working on it every day for the last two weeks from eight at night until three or four in the morning,” Malanga said. “It sucks because we wanted to shoot it more, but we understand. We kind of feel bad for wrecking the sign.”

Malanga said that the aiming was correct but that the cannon threw itself off at the moment it was fired. “We had it aimed at four degrees, but our jack had a little air pocket in it, so when we pulled the valve open, it pushed the jack just a little bit before it locked and gave us that little bit of extra height.”

The Discovery Science Center hosted the event from 9 a.m. – noon. Nine teams made up of college and high school students put their creativity and knowledge of engineering into constructing devices that would launch pumpkins toward targets set up on the stadium’s field.

he Pumpkin Lobber’s single shot of the day propelled a pumpkin and medicine ball through the Titan Stadium scoreboard. The dented metal was punctured by the flying pumpkin, with the lower hole caused by the medicine ball. Photo by Christine Amarantus.

Each team had three chances to send their pumpkins through flags and holes carved into wooden cut-outs. College students competed for paid internships at Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm where engineers can find careers, while high school students competed for $500 gift cards.

Joe Adams, president of the Discovery Science Center, said it was very exciting to see the turnout and enthusiasm people brought to the event. “It is neat to see how many people are out here,” Adams said, “and how this event connects the young members of the science center and the young families to the college … We can start to say … ‘these kids can become future engineers and scientists and get things that inspire them and excite them,’ and this is exactly the kind of thing we need.”

Adams said that four out of the nine CSUF teams spoke of their dedication to the event. “Cal State Fullerton actually had much more competitors within the college itself,” he said, “which I think shows the marking of the college taking on this as their competition.”

Adams added the joining of CSUF with the Discovery Science Center was positive. “We are excited to partner with Cal State Fullerton,” Adams said, “and we appreciate this partnership and look forward to many more.”

The event proceeded with each catapult, trebuchet and other device taking turns to launch their pumpkins. Pumpkins flew high, far and with surprising accuracy at times. Pumpkin shells spiraled across the field where they met the ground, and the crowd cheered for each launch. After each team had their three shots, the points were tallied for accuracy, and the Boeing High School Intern Team was declared the winner.

Arjun Chaurushia, a senior at Troy High School who was on the winning team, said, “It’s pretty cool to win. It’s a pretty good experience as a learning experience for engineering.”

“We did an internship over the summer at Boeing,” Chaurushia said. “After we completed it, they contacted us about participating in this event, and so we said we would do it.”

At the end, the winners from last year, CSUF Mechanical Engineering students Jeff Nelson and Fred Hogarth, passed on the trophy to the new winners, a miniature wooden catapult topped with a pumpkin spray-painted gold.

Laura Schmidl, volunteer manager for the Discovery Science Center, said that this year was different as it offered more hands-on activities for families. “We have three more activities than we had last year,” Schmidl said, including a miniature catapult-building station where people could build their own launchers using popsicle sticks, plastic spoons and rubber bands to launch marshmallows.
Schmidl also said there was an area where medieval battles were held at 11 a.m.

The battles between armored fighters from the Kingdom of Esperance, an educational re-enactment group dedicated to recreating medieval life, took place before the pumpkin launches began. Two fighters at a time met in a resounding clash of swords and armor until one would fall and the other would be victorious.

Janet Yamaguchi, vice president of education at the Discovery Science Center, said that the event was a fun and enticing opportunity for education. “Our goal is to have young children on to the university campus so that they can experience what a university campus is like,” Yamaguchi said.