Top 5 Pumpkin Festivals in New England

Thanks Yankee Magazine for the shout out. See their Fall issue, page 26, for the run down of the top Pumpkin Festivals in New England. Thank you everyone, VT Pumpkin Chuckin' made the cut.

Here Comes the 6th Annual Vermont Pumpkin Chuckin' Festival

Stoweflake Resort and Spa to Host 6th Annual “Vermont Pumpkin Chuckin' Festival”

Proceeds of Sept. 28^th, 2014 Event to Benefit the Lamoille Family Center

Stowe, Vermont, Aug. 19, 2014 – It is again time to get your pumpkin chuckin' trebuchet (gravity powered catapult) ready for the 6th Annual Vermont Pumpkin Chuckin' (VTPC) Festival. Mark your calendar for Sunday, September 28th, 2014 at the Stoweflake Resort and Spa in Stowe, Vermont. The VTPC Festival is a fun, family event sponsored by the Stoweflake Resort and Spa and other local sponsors. The event benefits the Lamoille Family Center, which has a thirty-eight year history of supporting Lamoille Valley families through early care, and educational services, home visiting, parent education, playgrounds, child care resource and referral, youth services, and emergency assistance. The event gives kids and adults a chance to build something with their hands and compete; a cross between a shot put contest and a Soap Box Derby.

The Festival runs from 11am to 4pm, and features three rounds of competitive pumpkin chuckin' at 12:30pm, 1:30pm and 2:30pm, with awards shortly after the last round. No dogs or outside food or beverage are allowed at the event. Admission to the Festival is $5 for ages 5 and over, free for 4 and under. Parking is free. Food, beer and wine will be sold by Stoweflake. Chili will also be available via a chili cookoff.

The Festival is a one-day event where Do-It-Yourself mechanical wizards of all ages attempt to launch pumpkins as far as possible with their trebuchets, a type of medieval siege weapon. The event has grown in size every year with over 2000 spectators last year. Last year nineteen teams from Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York competed in four different categories at the VTPC Festival.

Along with the pumpkin chuckin’ contest comes music, children’s activities, a bounce house, chili cook-off, and great food; all creating an enjoyable fall day. Music for this year's festival will again be provided by three bands; House Dunn, Ball Hammock and the duo Jen and John, which will be performing periodically from 11am to 4pm.

The festival has four categories of competition: Lightweight, Middleweight Junior, Middleweight Open and Heavyweight. Each category has height and weight limits to level the playing field.

Dave Jordan, enthusiastic founder (and competitor) of the festival says: "This is a fun competition modeled after the Soap Box Derby. The four categories each have their own mini-tournament and the four winners get a trophy, and $50 cash. The four winning teams then compete for the Grand Prize of Best Design. The Grand prize is awarded to the team that throws the farthest after adjusting for their trebuchet's height. The Grand prize winner gets an extra $50 cash and first choice of the prizes provided by local sponsors.”

It costs $5 to enter the competition (or to spectate). For the specifications, rules, and entry information please visit the festival's website (http://vtpumpkinchuckin.blogspot.com/) for details.

Chili Cook-off: For $5 the public can get a sample of each competitor's concoction and vote for first, second and third place. First place gets $100, second get $50 and third gets $25. To compete, bring 2 gallons of chili to the event. Competitors receive free admission to the Festival, free exposure for their chili, and a chance of winning prize money. Last year's winner, Deb Papineau has volunteered to run the cookoff and not compete. To register, or for more information, email Deb at deb@debsplaceinfo.com. 

INFO visit the festival's website at vtpumpkinchuckin.blogspot.com or contact the festival organizer Dave Jordan, Email: Djordan@GMAVT.net, phone (603) 630-4800

To volunteer to help at the 6^th VTPC, please contact Dave Jordan

World domination through leverage artillery!

The above title is the slogan from the Eastvale Trebuchet Works. Check them out on Facebook, they have lots of action videos and other useful information.

ETW Mission:

To advance the state of the hurling arts through research and development and by providing advice or tutoring to those in need.

A great looking championship west coast machine/team that has competed in pumpkin hurling events in California (Cal Fullerton's Pumpkin Launch), Arizona (Tucson Pumpkin Toss), and New Mexico.

-----

also on Facebook:

Southwest Catapults, Pumpkin Chuckers, and Siege Engineers

• This group is for the promotion and discussion of catapulting in all its various forms, by and for people primarily living in, but not limited to, the southwestern United States.

Happy Holidays

via:
Kay Smith / Ordnance Society / Twitter:
A wonderful image of the #Middelaldercentret #trebuchet in the snow - a masterpiece of old and new technologies.

Treb-on

Groupon looking at the trebuchet option:


reference:
CNET: Groupon's brilliant response to Amazon's drones

The Defender reports: Pumpkin Chuckin' Carnage

Cara Chapman and Juliana Summers from St. Michael's College put together an awesome 3 minute video that looks at the 5th annual VTPC Festival held at Snowflake.


Source:
Cara Chapman and Juliana Summers / The Defender, St. Michael's College:
Pumpkin Chuckin’ --

Scores of pumpkins died that day. Carcasses of orange mush littered the lush green field. Weapons of medieval mass destruction stood like soldiers readying for battle. Their engineers cared for only one thing: how far could they make these autumn gourds fly...

Official Results & Report - 5th Annual Vermont Pumpkin Chuckin' Festival

Quadcopter photo of VT Pumpkin Chuckin' Trebuchet firing line

This past Sunday, September 29th, over 1500 paid attendees turned out to watch pumpkins being thrown more than 500 feet using state-of-the-art versions of the medieval “trebuchet” siege engine. The weather was warm and sunny for the fifth annual VT Pumpkin Chuckin’ Festival, which was held, for the first time, on the grounds of the Stoweflake Mountain Resort and Spa in Stowe. The event raised over $9,000 for the Lamoille Family Center in Morrisville VT.

Food and beverage was served to the festive crowd, while House of Dunn served up tasty live music throughout the event. For the kids, there was a “bounce house”, mini-Olympics, face-painting, pumpkin carving and pumpkin bowling. And in spite of warm weather, the Chili Cook-off was popular enough to run out of chili by 3pm.

19 teams (10 youth and 9 adult, from five states) set up small, medium, and large trebuchets in 4 divisions: Lightweight (for chuckers 10 and under), Middleweight Junior (17 and under), Middleweight Open, and Heavyweight. Each competitor had 3 opportunities to fling their proportionately-sized pumpkin (or tomato for Lightweight), while tweaking various settings on their machines to optimize the throw.

The crowd was thrilled to watch records being shattered in all divisions (as they were last year, as well). The longest throw was a 5 pound pumpkin, which flew 521 ft , after being chucked by Chris McGrody's (from NH) trebuchet, “Hammer of the Gourds”, in the Heavyweight division. However it was a Middleweight trebuchet, “Angry Pumpkins” from CT, that took the overall Best Design prize (after mathematical compensation for the weight and size differences), with a 349 ft. chuck of a one pound pumpkin. If Angry Pumpkins were scaled up to Heavyweight size, it would throw a 5 pound pumpkin a whopping 598 ft; almost two football fields!

The event organizer, Dave Jordan, is looking forward to an even more successful event next Fall, and the Stoweflake Resort has already offered their facility for next season. Dave would like to thank the many volunteers who contributed their time and equipment, the Lamoille Family Center and specifically the event sponsors: Stoweflake Resort, Stowe UPS store, Aubuchon Hardware, PP +D Brochure Distribution, Boyden Farm, Button Land Surveyors, Umiak Outfitters, Trattoria LaFesta, Bee's Knees, Stowe Soaring, and Innsbruck Inn.

Grand Prize results:

All trebuchets compete in their own division and the top three in each division get a trophy. The winner of each division gets a prize and a chance at the Grand Prize. The four winners are mathematically scaled-up to “Heavyweight size” to see which trebuchet threw the farthest for their size.

For the second year in a row, the Grand Prize was won by Dwight Snowberger from CT, whose floating arm trebuchet, “Angry Pumpkins”, improved by over 80 feet from last year to narrowly beat Team Jordan (Don Jordan from NY and his brother Chris Jordan from FL) with their King Arthur design trebuchet. The Jordan brothers also improved by about 80 feet from last year, and like last year, still got nipped by Snowberger.

Official Division results:

Lightweight Division (20 pounds max, 41” max, 3 ounce tomato, age 10 and under)

1. Kinetic Pumpkins, Captain Alex Jaddus from VT, threw 80.3 ft.
2. Tomato Crushers, Captain Nathan McGrody from NH, threw 76.5 ft.
3. Dante's Little Spark, Captain Kenneth Damon from MA, threw 55.2 ft.
4. Tomato Flinger, Captain Zeke Churchill from VT, threw 35.5 ft.
5. Tomato Spitter, Captain Isaac Churchill from VT, threw 22.3 ft.

Middleweight Junior Division (100 pounds max, 70” max, 1 lb. Pumpkin, age 17 and under)

1. Dante's Flame, Captain Ryan Brown from MA, threw 137 ft.
2. Learning Together, Captain Lyndsay Gilcris from VT, threw 126.3 ft.
3. Born to Fly, Captain Olivia Doty from VT, threw 64.2 ft.
4. Life of Pumpkin Pie, Captain Connor Decker from VT, threw 54 ft.
5. Evans Brothers, Captain Patrick Evans from VT, threw 34.9 ft.

Middleweight Open Division (100 pounds max, 70” max, 1 lb. Pumpkin, open to all ages)

1. Angry Pumpkins, Captain Dwight Snowberger from CT, threw 349 ft.
2. Team Jordan, Captain Don Jordan from NY, threw 331 ft.
3. Queen Christine I, Captain Ray Chamberlain from VT, threw 310 ft.
4. Pumpkin Launchinator, Captain Scott Fenton from VT, threw 206.5 ft.
5. SUNY Plattsburgh Engineering, Captain Liam Harrison from NY, threw 185.5 ft.
6. SUNY Plattsburgh Physics, Captain Dan Stowe from NY, threw 107 ft.

Heavyweight Division ( 500 pounds max, 120” max, 5 lb. Pumpkin, open to all ages)

1. Hammer of the Gourds, Captain Chris McGrody from NH, threw 521 ft.
2. Weapons of Medieval Destructions, Captain Nick Helms from VT, threw 397 ft.
3. Dante's Inferno II, Captain Tim Brown from MA, threw 200 ft.

Grand Prize awarded to trebuchet with Best Design

• Angry Pumpkins, Captain Dwight Snowberger from Connecticut, threw scaled-up distance of 598 ft.

------

More Quadcopter pics over at our Facebook.

2013 VTPC Festival Pictures

We posted some nice pictures that Kim Brown, team Dante's Inferno, took at the 2013 festival to our Facebook albums, thank you Kim.