By KAREN WORKMAN
Of The Oakland Press

A new Halloween event that mixes a pumpkin smashing contest with math, science and engineering is coming to Orion Township this Saturday.

“The pumpkin has become the No. 1 thing to launch — they really explode very well when they hit the ground. There’s a good splatter effect,” said Michael Toth, the Lake Orion village councilman who organized the event.

Toth, a gym teacher at the Kingsbury Country Day School, first saw a Punkin’ Chunkin’ competition on TV and thought it would be fun to replicate the competition in the classroom.

The Punkin’ Chunkin’ Association, which hosts world championship competitions in Delaware each year, uses trebuchets to launch pumpkins. The team who builds a trebuchet that can launch a pumpkin the farthest is the winner.

“A trebuchet is similar to a catapult, but instead of springs, it uses gravity and a teeter-totter, seesawlike effect to fling something,” Toth explained.

The wooden machines were first invented by the Chinese in 400 B.C., Toth said.

“Around the time of the Crusades, it was perfected into what we know as a trebuchet today, with a large weight on one end and a projectile in the other end,” Toth said.

Toth taught middle-school kids how to make small-scale trebuchets, and it turned into a popular exercise, he said.

“One of the things I really enjoy about doing this is how much (the students) really get into the history, physics and engineering aspect of it,” Toth said. “The kids love it. Naturally, the kids want to go bigger, farther and better, so they end up doing the scientific method without even knowing it.”

Toth was motivated to get more people involved in the exercise, so he looked into organizing a bigger event open to the community.

Because the Punkin’ Chunkin’ Association owns the rights to holding this kind of contest, he purchased a $100 license through the group and coined the contest the Lake Orion Pumpkin Launch.

The contest was set up to have both a youth and adult division, but even after calling local school districts, he couldn’t get any teams registered for the youth division.

Three adult teams are registered and Toth expects a fourth group will register soon.

“We’re encouraging spectators to come and enjoy the competition, and I hope they will come back and decide to do it next year and that’s really the whole idea — encourage more people do this,” Toth said.

Toth’s three-person team is already working on a 30-foot-tall trebuchet for next year’s competition, which he estimates will launch a pumpkin the length of five football fields.

He’s hoping this year’s trebuchet can launch a pumpkin at least the length of a football field — 300 feet.

The cost to attend the event is $5, which is the Oakland County Parks and Recreation fee for entering a county park.

Children can have their photos taken with Shrek, the ogre from the cartoon movies, and there will also be cider, doughnuts and toy trebuchets for sale. There also will be time for attendants to get a closeup look at the trebuchets and how they work.

“It’s a fun event and we want to make it as enjoyable as possible, but also educational,” Toth said.

FYI

The Lake Orion Pumpkin Launch will be 1-4 p.m. Saturday at the Orion Oaks County Park, 2301 W. Clarkston Road. Cost is $5 for park entrance or free with an annual county park permit.