Bring a pumpkin from home to toss with this trebuchet at Pumpkin Smash at Crabtree Farms on Saturday.If you’ve never seen a pumpkin catapult through the air, then head to Crabtree Farms on Saturday, Nov. 2, for its live Pumpkin Chuckin’ at 11 a.m.
It’s part of the family fun planned during the daylong Pumpkin Smash, a fall harvest festival at the urban farm on East 30th Street. Pumpkin Chuckin’, also known as pumpkin chunkin’, combines science and engineering to build a trebuchet that will successfully hurl heavy pumpkins through the air toward targets … or just to watch them smash for the fun of it.
Joel Houser says visitors are invited to bring their leftover Halloween jack-o’-lanterns and pumpkins to launch from a custom-made trebuchet built by Britt Wood for this pumpkin smash. It is 10 feet tall and 13 feet wide. A physics class from Boyd-Buchanan School will compete in a trebuchet square-off in the early afternoon hours to see who can hurl small gourds and pumpkins the furthest.
If that’s not enough to catch your attention, there will be bluegrass music, a petting zoo, tractor rides and a free game alley offering corn hole, potato sack races, butternut squash relays and other activities.
Three pie-eating contests are set: 11 a.m., 12:45 and 2 p.m. Visitors can sign up for the event in the welcome tent when they arrive; walk-ups will be accepted before each contest as space allows.