
The route is clearly marked.

Dawn Thompson performing the Punkin Chunkin Anthem.

A small, apparently not-too-successful, trebuchet.

Inmate grounds crew with air powered cannons and centrifuges in background.

White punkin being chunked from a catapult.
This past weekend was the 20th annual World Championship Punkin Chunkin in rural southern Delaware. With a competitor from England, this year's contest actually was a world championship. Teams compete in adult and children's divisions with human- or machine-powered chunkin devices like catapults, trebuchets, centrifuges, and compressed air cannons. The human-powered machines are more interesting because you can see the pumpkins fly.
The air cannons shoot the 8-10 pound pumpkins, not pumpkins, so fast and so far that you're lucky to see them hit the ground more than half-a-mile away. Unless, of course, the punkins explode upon leaving the cannons, a condition known as "punkin pie in the sky", or fly backwards, as they occasionally do with the centrifuges and the less-tested devices. For safety only the crews are allowed near the machine-powered devices and a raised dump truck is used as a backstop.
Each team gets one chunk per day. Each machine takes a few minutes to set-up so there is plenty of waiting during the day. For entertainment there's a midway, bands, and, although alcohol is not sold on the grounds, plenty of drinking starting about nine in the morning.
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