Battle of the Flying Gourds: Flight Works Alabama holds pumpkin catapult competition

By Jiani Navarro

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    MOBILE, Alabama (WALA) — Folks had the chance to make pumpkins fly at Flight Works Alabama, for the Second Annual Pumpkin Catapult Competition.

Pumpkins were flying, splattering, and plopping as teams battled it out, trying to make their pumpkins fly the farthest.

Each team had three chances to launch a gourd from their homemade catapults or trebuchet.

Team ‘Aces’ from Denton Magnet School of Technology strategy was to use weights instead of elastic bands.

“We wanted to use the weight to help it go faster and use this to hold the pumpkin up here and so altogether it helps make the pumpkin fly,” said ‘Aces’ team member, Ryker Hoppy.

Their catapult, unfortunately, did not get pumpkins as far out as they wanted, “we couldn’t really get it to go as far. We realized that we needed more weight to get it to go farther,” said Hoppy.

Although the ‘Aces’ didn’t exactly ace the competition for getting their pumpkins the farthest, they did have the most festive catapult, the team won the Creative Design Award.

So whose catapult made pumpkins fly the farthest? That would be team ‘Frog’s Breath’.

After working on their catapult for two months, team member Mackenzie Lawrey said she was nervous about the launch as they ran into some challenges.

“It was hard because at first it wasn’t working, it was harder to pull then normal, so it hurt for a minute and then it finally went,” said Lawrey.

Those nerves were put to rest after they were able to get their last pumpkin to launch 70.5 feet out, winning the competition in their division.

“I was really, really proud of that,” said Lawrey.

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