Pumpkin Chunkin’ at CES
- 2024-2025 Spotlights
- STEM
Inspired by the annual Pumpkin Chunkin' World Championships, Cheltenham Elementary fourth graders were charged with designing a machine that could be successful in that contest. All of the student teams did a fantastic job of building their machines. Since students were testing their machines in the building, they built small-scale prototypes with cardboard, duct tape, rubber bands, and other materials. The prototypes launched marshmallows instead of pumpkins. The students produced a great variety of machines, and every team had at least one successful launch! Machines were judged on the distance of their launch, safety, reliability, and aesthetics.
The group with the farthest launch this year was Team N from Mrs. Siwek's room 42: Lucas Barona, Tymir Blount and Jayden Devero-Dillard. Their machine catapulted a marshmallow more than 10 meters down the hallway! Mrs. Siwek's class actually had the top three teams in this year's contest. They were also the classroom with the highest average distance at 628 cm, more than 50 cm farther than the best class average in the previous year's contest.
Unfortunately, none of this year's groups came close to the all-time school district record distance of 1,950 cm, which was set in 2019 by a team in Mrs. Hurley's class.
Congratulations to all of our fourth graders for a job well done!
- Cheltenham Elementary
- Cheltenham School District