I made a trebuchet when I was 13. Saved up for ages to buy the materials and it took ages to construct. On it's first test run my payload (a large rock) amazingly flew directly upwards, came back down and destroyed all my hard work. It was awesome.
Punkin Chunkin was one of those things that I thought that I wouldn't enjoy, but to my surprise it is now one of the many things that I look forward to when Thanksgiving rolls around.
I made a marshmallow-throwing trebuchet in physics class my junior year of high school. As it happened, my uncle was in town at the time, and between him, my dad, and me, the design ended up being a chest-high contraption of awesome.
I haven't seen one, but I imagine the difference is pretty simple. Fermentation is a specific process in which a fungus eats organic materials and produces a gas (usually carbon dioxide) and an alcohol (usually ethanol) Rotting is a general process in which organic material breaks down in many number of ways, including fermentation but also self-activated cell death (either through running out of energy or burned through some corrosive liquid) and being eaten by small animals and plants.
Energy, as a physics term, refers to the ability to cause change. The simplest form of energy is work, which is force applied over distance. Because of the conservation of energy, all other types of energy can be converted back into work. So a pumpkin with 100 joules of kinetic energy has enough energy to apply a 10 N force for 10 m, or a 1 N force for 100 m, etc. People talk about converting matter into energy, but it's probably more accurate to say that matter is a form of stored energy.
It would be an awesome sight if a small army of Punkin Chunkers rolled up on the outskirts of a small town, and started flinging their squishy projectiles at the town centre at the same time :) Could be fun to set up and film in a "ghost town".
YES!! DELAWARE! I LOVE IT WHEN PEOPLE TALK ABOUT US!! Gosh sorry, it's just real exciting to here about your state when people normally forget about you
Its some dinner pilgrims and native americans had a long time ago. It became a tradition. We eat turkey dinners and give thanks about stuff. thats it put pretty simply.
Were I to join the Punkin' Chunkin' contest, I would be in a new category: Railguns/Coilguns. Place pumpkin in ferromagnetic sabot - build up a helluva lot of electricity in a capacitor bank, release into rails, watch squash fly at mach 17, landing 370 km away (actual figure gotten by the US Navy on one of their test railguns).
When discussing the possibility of doing sponsored videos, this one should be held up as an example of how to do it. It feels like it belongs on this channel; it's interesting and well done, like the rest of their work. My main quibble is that I wished the intro or something inside the video itself made it clear that The Science Channel paid for the video, like bloggers have to clearly label sponsored blog posts.
the blue centrifugal, Bad to the Bone, is seriously frightening to behold. They literally clear everyone out from behind it just in case it, yah know...explodes. Cuz that's what it looks like it's gonna do EVERY time.
Not a ton to say about them. They're basically electrons with a positive charge. They're generated during radioactive decay depending on the isotope, and when one meets an electron it results in annihilation of both particles and a release of energy. A positron can join with an antiproton to form antihydrogen.
In 2003, i think, my high school built what was basically a giant pumpkin slingshot and one first in the youth division! Over 900 yards! That was before i went to high school and last year we sold the contraption to help buy a robot for FIRST robotics.
Yes I have. I've also formally studied Newtonian mechanics. If you consider the noninertial frame of the rotating ball, centrifugal force appears, clear as day. You have to appreciate the laws of physics as we know them only work for inertial frames (ie constant speed frames). He even admits as such. I'm not arguing that it doesn't exist in the stationary frame of reference, but I AM saying that it exists in some frames of reference.
i is defined by the property i^2=-1, because -i is just as valid a solution to x^2=-1. i^2=-1 is equivalent to i=(-1)^.5, but square roots are inelegant, so we square both sides to get i^2=-1. We also tend to avoid the i=(-1)^.5 definition because that can lead to the false assumption i^2=(-1)^.5*(-1)^.5=(-1*-1)^.5=(1)^.5=1. This false assumption gives a much better reasoning for the existence of i than what I gave earlier. It's much easier to keep track of i than negative square roots.
I'm happy you pronounced trebuchet like you did. Apparently it's supposed to be pronounced tree-bucket or tré-boo-shet, which make it sound about 10 times less cool.
When I was a young alien, I build a pumpkin catapult consisting of a vertical, pumpkin-caliber, nearly-vacuum tube with a pair of teleport gates at the ends, and a switch to connect the bottom gate to a third, 45° upwards pointing ejection gate. The idea was to put the pumpkin into the falling tube, to let it accelerate between the gates, and to turn the switch once it had reached terminal velocity. It was fun! The pumpkin almost reached escape velocity once. I wonder where it went down.
In high school a couple friends and I decided to build a trebuchet out of boredom. It wasn't nearly on the scale of these, but it did throw a softball well over 100 yards. Not bad for a few goofballs just messing around after school.
if the basket or pouch the pumpkin is in is well-done and nicely supports the pumpkin, they can really survive a lot. So far the most extreme machines dont yet really run into such problems. and you could if necessary switch to melons, they are more durable, more dense and more round.
Hey Hank and other science enthusiasts like myself, I am not only a science lover but I love films and media and creating all those types of things, now I realise that science and films haven't exactly gone hand in hand in the past as films have tended to ignore every rule of physics in the book at some point or another. But my question to everyone and Hank is if you could watch a film based around a science type event or story what would it be??
From the moment you said punkin chunkin competition until the "no explosives",300 different ways to throw a pumpkin using explosives went through my mind.
A pumpkin is not a vegetable; it's a fruit! In fact, it's a berry. Pumpkins belong to the family Cucurbitaceae, which includes cucumbers, melons, squash, and gourds.
If we are nitpicking, than centrifugal force is not inertia at the very least because inertia is a scalar and a force is a vector. The point however is that it's not a “real” thing in the sense that there is nothing that exerts that force.
My Physics class actually entered the youth category for CO this year and despite the freezing rain it was an amazing time watching all of the professional teams launch. It really is amazing getting to see how the machines work up close.
The only difference between an anti-electron and an electron is that the anti-electron has a positive charge, when normal electrons has a negative charge.
So I went onto the Science website and all it says is "Thanksgiving night @ 8pm". After doing so research on TV Guide's website I found it was 8pm EST. Punkin Chunkin 2012 will be on TV @ 8pm -5GMT Or Punkin Chunkin 2012 will on TV @ 1am GMT. Plan accordingly because it will be awesome.
I build a mini trebuchet in "high school" dutch version. it's base was roughly 25 cm high (10 inches) and it could chuck golf balls about 30 meters. incredibly cool to watch lol
@2:32 Wrong. since g is constant, and f=ma, only the mass is variable in how much force is applied to the pumpkin. The variable affected by the height of the counterweight is how much time it has to accelerate the pumpkin before it leaves the trebuchet, thus having a higher counterweight affects the velocity of the pumpkin, but not the force applied to it. It is momentum that is force over time, and thus the higher the counterweight and the heavier, the more momentum it gives the pumpkin. DFTBA
When dealing with rotating systems it is often useful to use a rotating reference frame. And that includes recognizing all the oddities of a rotating reference frame- most notably the centrifugal and Coriolis forces. And I see people misunderstanding as an opportunity to explain- not to dismiss the topic as non existent.
I simultaneously think "What a plug for Science Channel" and "Wow, he's awesome, he's doing a plug for Science Channel!" No hate here, just thought it was humorous.
My school used to have a trebuchet competition for the freshman level class, but they replaced it when I was a freshman with a hovercraft competition, which is decidedly less cool than exploding fruits ;P
It's an imaginary force, which means that it just makes calculations easier when you want to look at an accelerating object as though it was stationary.
We'll never forget you, State #1! Even when your misguided hippie ways have run you into the ground, you'll still always be kind-of average in our hearts.
You are all missing the point of this. It actually serves no real purpose to through a pumkin but it is a challange to do it. Check out Team Chucky. We have been having a lot of fun for 12 YEARS.
It means, that there are at least 30 people in this world, who imgaine trebuchet, when they hear the word "catapult"! They look just like ordinary people. They might be sitting next to you on the bus, performing a surgery on your grandma or looking after your children, when you're at work. And the worst is, that you'll never know until something happens. I don't know how about you, but this freezes my blood and I'm not sure if I'll be able to feel safe in this world again...
The worst thing a science education advocate can hear: "but please, don't try this at home...just watch from the safety of your sofa." Hank, you disappoint me.
There are also two divisions as well: adult and youth. The youth division is pretty cool, seeing as the one I saw on "Road to Punkin Chunkin" was a trebuchet that they added a second weight to the rope, making the second fulcrum. The only danger is that they also showed that the second weight split a cinder block clean through on its post-launch followthrough.
It's a sic show video, so if it's got hank in it you're on the right track, i just searched the channel, the video title is IDTIMWYTIM: Centrifugal Force
I don't think they've had time to put the annotation in yet, but if you go to the channel the video will be there and there's a handy search box, just type in centrifugal and you'll be able to find it :)
It's definitely not a pointless concept, as usage of non-inertial reference frame can greatly simplify models and calculations. And the point that, I think, people are making when they say that “centrifugal force is not a thing” is to point to non-scientists that their intuition that there is something pulling things outwards is incorrect, but it is not to dismiss the concept all together. I think that MyAJ91 feels the same way in light of his √-1 remark.
Yeah, I'm going to have to disagree with the "don't try this at home". Building a trebuchet for high school physics was probably the most fun I had with any school project.
Yea I was thinking of a pump to create the vacuum inside the canon barrel and then a valve of some sort to equalise the pressure. The air rushing into the barrel would send the projectile a good distance I reckon!
You know, I would say calling their machines "centrifugal" is a fair use, but only if it's referring to their resemblance to centrifuges, and not the imaginary force. Either way, I wouldn't want to stand very close to one when it was operational.
That's actually a very poor assumption these days with more and more people moving to UTC as the standard (in the US anyway, it was already a pretty good standard elsewhere). However, in this case we're talking about a US national television provider, so they actually means is 8pm Eastern and Pacific. (The show being repeated in their schedule.)
having built an onager in middle school (only 1 foot long, so not overly impressive) I can attest to the effectiveness of the torsion machine, which ironically predated the trebuchet and mangonel
thats why even some universities do their own competitions, students in teams only. also its the only way to learn how to apply your knowledge, building something new from scratch that has to work, so students build race cars and race with them, or micro-sattelites, or all kinds of robots, or flying stuff. Or pumpkin chunkers.
Flagging this video as needing (not just auto-generated) subtitles. Please help us hard of hearing and deaf folks access your content!! 🥰🤟🏻
I made a trebuchet when I was 13. Saved up for ages to buy the materials and it took ages to construct. On it's first test run my payload (a large rock) amazingly flew directly upwards, came back down and destroyed all my hard work. It was awesome.
Punkin Chunkin was one of those things that I thought that I wouldn't enjoy, but to my surprise it is now one of the many things that I look forward to when Thanksgiving rolls around.
I watch this every year with my grandfather. The best bonding time ever.
I made a marshmallow-throwing trebuchet in physics class my junior year of high school. As it happened, my uncle was in town at the time, and between him, my dad, and me, the design ended up being a chest-high contraption of awesome.
I haven't seen one, but I imagine the difference is pretty simple. Fermentation is a specific process in which a fungus eats organic materials and produces a gas (usually carbon dioxide) and an alcohol (usually ethanol)
Rotting is a general process in which organic material breaks down in many number of ways, including fermentation but also self-activated cell death (either through running out of energy or burned through some corrosive liquid) and being eaten by small animals and plants.
Energy, as a physics term, refers to the ability to cause change. The simplest form of energy is work, which is force applied over distance. Because of the conservation of energy, all other types of energy can be converted back into work. So a pumpkin with 100 joules of kinetic energy has enough energy to apply a 10 N force for 10 m, or a 1 N force for 100 m, etc. People talk about converting matter into energy, but it's probably more accurate to say that matter is a form of stored energy.
It would be an awesome sight if a small army of Punkin Chunkers rolled up on the outskirts of a small town, and started flinging their squishy projectiles at the town centre at the same time :)
Could be fun to set up and film in a "ghost town".
YES!! DELAWARE! I LOVE IT WHEN PEOPLE TALK ABOUT US!! Gosh sorry, it's just real exciting to here about your state when people normally forget about you
Its some dinner pilgrims and native americans had a long time ago. It became a tradition. We eat turkey dinners and give thanks about stuff. thats it put pretty simply.
Were I to join the Punkin' Chunkin' contest, I would be in a new category:
Railguns/Coilguns.
Place pumpkin in ferromagnetic sabot - build up a helluva lot of electricity in a capacitor bank, release into rails, watch squash fly at mach 17, landing 370 km away (actual figure gotten by the US Navy on one of their test railguns).
When discussing the possibility of doing sponsored videos, this one should be held up as an example of how to do it. It feels like it belongs on this channel; it's interesting and well done, like the rest of their work. My main quibble is that I wished the intro or something inside the video itself made it clear that The Science Channel paid for the video, like bloggers have to clearly label sponsored blog posts.
the blue centrifugal, Bad to the Bone, is seriously frightening to behold. They literally clear everyone out from behind it just in case it, yah know...explodes. Cuz that's what it looks like it's gonna do EVERY time.
the cut seen graphics are so nice in scishow, very comfortable visual transitions.
Not a ton to say about them. They're basically electrons with a positive charge. They're generated during radioactive decay depending on the isotope, and when one meets an electron it results in annihilation of both particles and a release of energy. A positron can join with an antiproton to form antihydrogen.
In 2003, i think, my high school built what was basically a giant pumpkin slingshot and one first in the youth division! Over 900 yards! That was before i went to high school and last year we sold the contraption to help buy a robot for FIRST robotics.
8pm... where!? As your viewers are from all over the world it'd be nice to get a time zone specification. Great video, dftba!
Yes I have. I've also formally studied Newtonian mechanics. If you consider the noninertial frame of the rotating ball, centrifugal force appears, clear as day. You have to appreciate the laws of physics as we know them only work for inertial frames (ie constant speed frames). He even admits as such. I'm not arguing that it doesn't exist in the stationary frame of reference, but I AM saying that it exists in some frames of reference.
i is defined by the property i^2=-1, because -i is just as valid a solution to x^2=-1.
i^2=-1 is equivalent to i=(-1)^.5, but square roots are inelegant, so we square both sides to get i^2=-1. We also tend to avoid the i=(-1)^.5 definition because that can lead to the false assumption i^2=(-1)^.5*(-1)^.5=(-1*-1)^.5=(1)^.5=1. This false assumption gives a much better reasoning for the existence of i than what I gave earlier. It's much easier to keep track of i than negative square roots.
I'm happy you pronounced trebuchet like you did. Apparently it's supposed to be pronounced tree-bucket or tré-boo-shet, which make it sound about 10 times less cool.
Can we have a great minds on Joseph Fourier? He is relatively obscure but undoubtedly a supergenius.
When I was a young alien, I build a pumpkin catapult consisting of a vertical, pumpkin-caliber, nearly-vacuum tube with a pair of teleport gates at the ends, and a switch to connect the bottom gate to a third, 45° upwards pointing ejection gate. The idea was to put the pumpkin into the falling tube, to let it accelerate between the gates, and to turn the switch once it had reached terminal velocity.
It was fun! The pumpkin almost reached escape velocity once. I wonder where it went down.
I want to see a railgun pumpkin chuncker.
+Joe Long I was thinking this too.
I highly suggest your local hobby store. They often have tiny pumpkins for dollhouses.
Oh man, Pumpkin Chunkin'. Stayed home sick one day, watched 5 straight hours.
On the science channel and who ever owns "Scrapheap Challenge" broadcasting rights at this point.
In high school a couple friends and I decided to build a trebuchet out of boredom. It wasn't nearly on the scale of these, but it did throw a softball well over 100 yards. Not bad for a few goofballs just messing around after school.
if the basket or pouch the pumpkin is in is well-done and nicely supports the pumpkin, they can really survive a lot. So far the most extreme machines dont yet really run into such problems. and you could if necessary switch to melons, they are more durable, more dense and more round.
YES. They said Delaware. I have never been so happy to be from Delaware
Hey Hank and other science enthusiasts like myself,
I am not only a science lover but I love films and media and creating all those types of things, now I realise that science and films haven't exactly gone hand in hand in the past as films have tended to ignore every rule of physics in the book at some point or another.
But my question to everyone and Hank is if you could watch a film based around a science type event or story what would it be??
Sponsored video??? AWESOME!! GO SCI SHOW!!!!
Nice punkin chunkin commercial. I intend to watch at some point.
please tell me your appart of Science Channel now. Scishow and Science Channel combined.... *melts*
i love trebuchets, it has always been a dream of mine to build one, but it probably wont ever be big enough to compete for pumpkin chuckin
From the moment you said punkin chunkin competition until the "no explosives",300 different ways to throw a pumpkin using explosives went through my mind.
It always feels weird when people say thanksgiving a month after i celebrate it
A pumpkin is not a vegetable; it's a fruit! In fact, it's a berry. Pumpkins belong to the family Cucurbitaceae, which includes cucumbers, melons, squash, and gourds.
I can't believe that the machine that won the trebuchet category weighed less than just the counterweight of the second place finisher.
If we are nitpicking, than centrifugal force is not inertia at the very least because inertia is a scalar and a force is a vector. The point however is that it's not a “real” thing in the sense that there is nothing that exerts that force.
My Physics class actually entered the youth category for CO this year and despite the freezing rain it was an amazing time watching all of the professional teams launch. It really is amazing getting to see how the machines work up close.
I like how we're warned not to try this at home, as if the people doing it at the events were in any way qualified.
The only difference between an anti-electron and an electron is that the anti-electron has a positive charge, when normal electrons has a negative charge.
So I went onto the Science website and all it says is "Thanksgiving night @ 8pm".
After doing so research on TV Guide's website I found it was 8pm EST.
Punkin Chunkin 2012 will be on TV @ 8pm -5GMT
Or Punkin Chunkin 2012 will on TV @ 1am GMT.
Plan accordingly because it will be awesome.
I build a mini trebuchet in "high school" dutch version.
it's base was roughly 25 cm high (10 inches) and it could chuck golf balls about 30 meters. incredibly cool to watch lol
@2:32 Wrong. since g is constant, and f=ma, only the mass is variable in how much force is applied to the pumpkin. The variable affected by the height of the counterweight is how much time it has to accelerate the pumpkin before it leaves the trebuchet, thus having a higher counterweight affects the velocity of the pumpkin, but not the force applied to it. It is momentum that is force over time, and thus the higher the counterweight and the heavier, the more momentum it gives the pumpkin. DFTBA
Curiosity found something! Er well, it may have. Apparently NASA isn't going to say what it is for sure yet. But it's supposed to be big! So excited!
I actually built a small trebuchet for my school's homecoming day - launched a small pumpkin 125 ft.
I WAS THERE...!
Bridgeville, DE. Where hippies, hillbillies, college kids and engineers all come together to get drunk and chuck pumpkins.
We made are own for school that were much smaller there were 30 catapult 1 tortian 2 tribushets and my very own 1 centrifugal it was so awesome!
Trebuchets are my favorite category in pumpkin chunkin
When dealing with rotating systems it is often useful to use a rotating reference frame. And that includes recognizing all the oddities of a rotating reference frame- most notably the centrifugal and Coriolis forces.
And I see people misunderstanding as an opportunity to explain- not to dismiss the topic as non existent.
I simultaneously think "What a plug for Science Channel" and "Wow, he's awesome, he's doing a plug for Science Channel!"
No hate here, just thought it was humorous.
My school used to have a trebuchet competition for the freshman level class, but they replaced it when I was a freshman with a hovercraft competition, which is decidedly less cool than exploding fruits ;P
It's an imaginary force, which means that it just makes calculations easier when you want to look at an accelerating object as though it was stationary.
this. this is how you market a show.
We'll never forget you, State #1!
Even when your misguided hippie ways have run you into the ground, you'll still always be kind-of average in our hearts.
catapults: not only used for apulting cats... Hank you crack me up lol.
I'm so excited.
Best. Title. Ever.
You are all missing the point of this. It actually serves no real purpose to through a pumkin but it is a challange to do it. Check out Team Chucky. We have been having a lot of fun for 12 YEARS.
It means, that there are at least 30 people in this world, who imgaine trebuchet, when they hear the word "catapult"! They look just like ordinary people. They might be sitting next to you on the bus, performing a surgery on your grandma or looking after your children, when you're at work. And the worst is, that you'll never know until something happens.
I don't know how about you, but this freezes my blood and I'm not sure if I'll be able to feel safe in this world again...
The worst thing a science education advocate can hear: "but please, don't try this at home...just watch from the safety of your sofa." Hank, you disappoint me.
Exploding pumpkin catapults. Hell, yeah!
As someone who lives in the community where Punkin Chunkin is held, I can safely say it's our equivalent to the Super Bowl.
There are also two divisions as well: adult and youth. The youth division is pretty cool, seeing as the one I saw on "Road to Punkin Chunkin" was a trebuchet that they added a second weight to the rope, making the second fulcrum. The only danger is that they also showed that the second weight split a cinder block clean through on its post-launch followthrough.
Hey! I actually do have a scale model of a trebuchet. Perhaps I'll go dust it off and have some fun in the hallway for a bit. :)
Hmm I didn't know it was coming up to thanksgiving, but Happy Thanksgiving anyhow!:)
I can never support food wasting (that is this pumpkin launching event) but I do like the science behind it.
Omg, new goal as an engineer once I get out of school
They have a no explosives rule, as long as the suction can be applied without the use of explosives it should be ok.
You'd need to find a way to magnetize the pumpkin but it would be awesome.
It's a sic show video, so if it's got hank in it you're on the right track, i just searched the channel, the video title is
IDTIMWYTIM: Centrifugal Force
I don't think they've had time to put the annotation in yet, but if you go to the channel the video will be there and there's a handy search box, just type in centrifugal and you'll be able to find it :)
No explosions? Do I sense a glorious opportunity for my punkin' chunkin' railgun? Magnet power!
Yay! I have a scale model trebuchet! I can try this at home!
Now to find scale model pumpkins...
Is that Yankee Siege in the thumbnail and trebuchet video clip? I've been up to Greenfield to see it in action!
Casually approach pumpkin
Grasp Pumpkin firmly
Yeet the pumpkin
Not strange that youtube recommended me this but it should also have thrown my way a video of it, if it's still going on.
I laughed a little too hard at 'for apulting cats'
It's definitely not a pointless concept, as usage of non-inertial reference frame can greatly simplify models and calculations.
And the point that, I think, people are making when they say that “centrifugal force is not a thing” is to point to non-scientists that their intuition that there is something pulling things outwards is incorrect, but it is not to dismiss the concept all together. I think that MyAJ91 feels the same way in light of his √-1 remark.
You would need a sabot. Which is against the rules.
"2. No part of the machine shall cross the firing line."
Yeah, I'm going to have to disagree with the "don't try this at home". Building a trebuchet for high school physics was probably the most fun I had with any school project.
Yea I was thinking of a pump to create the vacuum inside the canon barrel and then a valve of some sort to equalise the pressure. The air rushing into the barrel would send the projectile a good distance I reckon!
You know, I would say calling their machines "centrifugal" is a fair use, but only if it's referring to their resemblance to centrifuges, and not the imaginary force. Either way, I wouldn't want to stand very close to one when it was operational.
I want to see a railgun chunker one of these days.
they would get their own little division, we could put them next to the catapults to make them feel unsophisticated XD
Anyone heard of a Coil gun? Basically a large slug of iron into the pumpkin, and a freaking' HUGE electromagnet
That's actually a very poor assumption these days with more and more people moving to UTC as the standard (in the US anyway, it was already a pretty good standard elsewhere). However, in this case we're talking about a US national television provider, so they actually means is 8pm Eastern and Pacific. (The show being repeated in their schedule.)
Centrifugal force does not exist in inertial reference frames. In rotating (and therefore accelerated, i.e., non-inertial) reference frames, it does.
I'm from delaware, and the only things we have are no sales tax (which some other states have), beaches, and pumpkin chunkin.
ME TOO and tru
My cat went crazy because of the cat sound at 1:25.
Whoo! I live in Delaware :) Yet funnily I've never been to a Punkin Chunkin!
Thank you for the information.
having built an onager in middle school (only 1 foot long, so not overly impressive) I can attest to the effectiveness of the torsion machine, which ironically predated the trebuchet and mangonel
sqrt(-1) isn't a thing. i^2 = -1 is a thing. i is the solution to the equation x^2 + 1 = 0. People always state it wrong.
You should host this year. If only you didn't have a million other things to do
Oh god that meow scared me xD
thats why even some universities do their own competitions, students in teams only. also its the only way to learn how to apply your knowledge, building something new from scratch that has to work, so students build race cars and race with them, or micro-sattelites, or all kinds of robots, or flying stuff. Or pumpkin chunkers.
Oh, UTC-5:00
Thanks!
I'm always afraid that the pumpkin is going to get stuck in the rope and not release until it is facing the audience.