It’s that time of year again. Fall is in full blossom, and that means it’s time to witness pumpkins flying a mile through the air thanks to compressed nitrogen.
The annual World Championship Punkin Chunkin contest took place earlier this month in Delaware. While some of the competitors insist on using catapult-style trebuchets to launch their pumpkins, some of the more adventurous entrants compete in the air cannon contest, where pumpkin launches go more than 4,000 feet on the power of compressed air and gases. I heard about the contest last year from GAWDA President Bryan Keen, who says that nitrogen is one of the gases used.
The contest follows strict safety standards, with air vessels required to be inspected, hydrostatically tested, and built to ASME codes. In the video below, watch one of the teams weld their air cannon together. They use a custom butterfly valve to get the maximum distance.
Also, after you finish your pumpkin pie, tune into the Discovery Channel or the Science Channel on Thanksgiving at 8 p.m. to watch the Punkin Chunkin contest in action. I won’t spoil the results, but watch to see if anyone can top the current record distance of 4483.51 feet (That’s about .85 miles).
I was flipping through the channels last night when I came across one of my favorite horror movies of all time: Jaws. While the shark doesn’t seem quite as large or as scary as it did when I was young, it still gives me shivers when that music starts to play, “duh-duh. duh-duh.” It was the ending of the movie, however, that got me to thinking about 
