CWU Physics Club's 'Pumpkin Drop' Smashing Success

The day started with spits of rain, with wind blowing through the trees on campus, sending leaves up against the fence surrounding the nearby construction site.

As the time ticked closer to the designated starting time, the numbers on the ground began to grow. Whether they were wannabe rock stars that remembered the video of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards throwing a television off the balcony of his hotel room at the Andaz West Hollywood on the Sunset Strip in 1975 or not, they gathered.

Some were there because of the science involved in watching a pumpkin sail over the rail of the fifth floor balcony at Discovery Hall at Central Washington University to its sudden impact some 100 feet below. Others were there because of the math, some just liked a different form of entertainment, like seeing something smash on the ground.

To the preschool kids running around, it was just plain cool.

No matter what the drawing point, the first Society of Physics Students Pumpkin Drop was a smashing success. To math department instructor Sandy Richards, the mathematics involved made it interesting.

Read this article in its entirety online at the Daily Record.

Photo: Courtesy of Jacob Ford, Daily Record.