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Shop Class #8: Pumpkin Madness

As the students enter into the Danger ~~Room~~ Shop, they find that it has been transformed into a large field. On one side of a field is a barn with a large bullseye painted on it. On the other side of the field a series of markers, much like you would see at a golf driving range.

Everyone's flinger is setup where they left it and a large pile of pumpkins sits next to each one.

Mac tosses a pumpkin in the air with a grin.

"Okay kids... Let's have some fun."

((OOC: Read the following posts for what to do.))

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(OOC: Please describe your machine to Mac IC)

Alright sir, this is the Callynanders Chucker 4000, It flings, it stings, it even makes julienne fries. Well, not the last bit. ~~Though Bridge's machine might...~~

Basically, we've set up a ballista. The winch powers back the cable, attached to set of tension bars, to build up the required tension and energy for the fling. Attaches to the string is out little half-bucket that we put the pumpkin in. After the winch pulls the cable back into full tension, we have a quick release pin so that it can fling with sudden and direct force. *nod*

"Looks Good guys. Let's see how it does in action."

Sam pulled her machine out and placed it in the appropriate spot. Having no illusions about who would be cleaning up the pumpkin guts after class, she'd worn her oldest jeans and one of Jack's shirts. "What I've got here is kind of like a combination of a motorized tetherball pole and old-fashioned sling."

She placed the ~~lotion in the basket~~ pumpkin in the duct tape sling and positioned it carefully as she demonstrated. "The lawnmower engine spins the pole, which in turns spins the pumpkin in its duct tape sling, which is attached to the pole using aircraft cable. When the centrifugal force gets to be too much and too strong, the cotter pin," she pointed to it, "from the old exercise bike will fail from the stress and release the pumpkin."

Sam studied her device carefully. "Inertia should take care of the rest."

"Wow. Very nice. Do you have any control of when the pumpkin is released?"

"Well, I checked the specs on the cotter pins, figured out the rate of speed of the lawnmower motor, and adjusted the tension on the aircraft cable using some information I found in the library, but if these parts don't match those specs or I calculated wrong, then, no, I guess I don't."

[OOC: BTW - The lotion in the basket thing? *Iz ded*]

_{[[*laughing at the lotion, plus the specs bit below*]]}

*DEATH gestures to his machine, to which a pumpkin is already strapped.*

[OOC: Can I just tell you how much I enjoy having you in my class? You make me die laughing EVERY TIME!!]

"This is pretty much a giant potato gun. The base is a 55-gallon drum, with an electric girll lighter inside. It narrows into this PVC pipe, which is where the pumpkin will go. Once the pumpkin is in place, I'll fill a pie plate with kerosene, plug the fill hole, and light it." Rogue smiles, nervously. She really wants this to work.

Edward clambers up onto one side of his flinger, it looks rather plain in comparision to everyone's motorized works. "I took four sawhorses," he said, standing on one of them, "and stacked two to a side a shored up everything with various metal odds-and-ends I found around the place. I took an axel from some old mining car, cut off the wheels and set it into the top two sawhorses. For the arm, I used a laundry pole and welded a basketball hoop to one end with the net tied up to hold the pumpkin. The counterweight," he points to a dark bag on the other end of the laundry pole, "is a bowling ball on a ceiling hook."

"Trebuchet," Krycek says, looking his machine over one last time. "Its frame is built of steel and welded to an engine block at the bottom to keep it down. The throwing arm - made of a medium-weight metal bar - is attached a chain which is in turn secured to a small rubber tire, cut to hold the pumpkin, and is counterbalanced at the other side by a 25lb weight, which is really a bag of bits and pieces of lead.

"Winching down the throwing arm, it's secured to this hook at the base of the frame by a rope... which when cut, should fling the pumpkin a sizable distance." He hopes.

"Looks good Krycek. Let's get you a pumpkin and see how it works."

"A Solo-Sheppard Pumpkin Chunker. Standard Trebuchet design, frame ductaped out of an old hammock frame, sling made from the hammock itself, counterweighted with someone's discarded weight set. Sent a medicine ball about 40 meters yesterday."

He turns to his partner. "Shep, you got anything to say?

Fire in the hole?

Set 'er up in the next thread then.

It's... well, it's basically a coffee-powered cannon of sorts. There's a piston inside the barrel, which is powered by the brewing coffee. Once the coffee is finished brewing, the piston converts that energy to mechanical energy and moves upwards, sending the pumpkin up and out.

Plus? Then you get to drink the coffee.

blah, i mean to say "the piston converts the energy from the caffiene to mechanical energy". yup.

Realizing that his plan had a flaw, John spends the first few minutes of class fixing his problem. the problem? No way to load it. He cuts out another hole in steel plate the inside diameter of the barrel and replaces the current air fitting flange plate with this one, RTVs it, and then drills some holes to bolt the air flange to this new mounting flange.

John then uses a can of half-empty fix a flat to get the stupid flat wheel working, and tugs it over to where Mac's standing.

It's a large pipe on a engine cherry picker welded and bolted to a small car trailer. The thing looks ~~like it was built in Russia in the 50's by overly safety concious engineers~~ ungainly, with a metal cage surrounding the pipe and two mounting flanges, one in the middle and one at the end.

"Air pressure cannon. Pressurized air leaves the tanks, through the Y fitting, to the dump valve trigger, into the cannon, say bye bye to the pumpkin. I haven't tested it with live ammo, but the valve works. It's a muzzle loader, but I have a removable flange at the bottom."

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Shop Class #8: Pumpkin Madness

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