Pumpkin Drop Winners Named

October 31, 2012

Here are the top performing teams from the 2012 Pumpkin Drop sponsored by Old Dominion University's Society of Physics Students.

Twelve teams entered the Halloween-season competition. Each built a contraption designed to give a soft ground-level landing to a pumpkin were dropped from atop the nine-story Batten Arts and Letters Building. These catchers ranged from simple cardboard boxes stuffed with foam or straw to a wire cage holding several layers of air mattresses.

Seven teams built successful catchers. These included:

Team 2 from Portsmouth Christian High School - Alan Daigle, Alex Lee, Lindsey Birch and Chrissy Hultzman.

Five successful teams were made up of ODU students of Lawrence Weinstein, Eminent Scholar and University Professor of phyics:

Team 4 - Leah Smith, Matt Janson, Michael Brooks, Karen Howard;

Team 5 - Laura Treese and Beth McGlone;

Team 6 - Eugenia Metzger, Joe Rothfuss, Scott Wittington and Nate Bell;

Team 7 - Morgan Wernecke, Angela Parks and Matt Renzi;

Team 10 - Jeffrey Childress, Jasmin Little and Taniya Perry.

The final successful catcher was entered by an ODU student of Charles Hyde, professor of physics:

Team 12 - Paul Wiley.

More than 200 spectators, including pupils from Larchmont Elementary School, witnessed the plummeting pumpkins.