Pumpkin Launch 2008

On Saturday, Nov. 1, more than 800 Southern California school children and their parents filled the stands of California State University, Fullerton’s Titan Stadium for Pumpkin Launch 2008.

In this first year of what will become an annual event on the West Coast, seven teams from academia and industry competed to hit castle targets after a morning of fall festivities, which included catapult contests, interactive science stage shows, medieval displays, a carved pumpkin contest, music and carnival food.

The event was put on by Discovery Science Center's Future Scientists and Engineers of America program and the College of Engineering and Computer Science at California State University, Fullerton. The goal for the annual event is to help familiarize students with a university setting and to inspire them to consider careers in math, science, engineering and technology.

Participants in the Pumpkin Launch Competition included the California State University, Fullerton American Society of Civil Engineers chapter; the California State University, Fullerton Society of Automotive Engineers Chapter; California State University-Long Beach; Booz Allen Hamilton; The Boeing Company and a middle school team from Keiller Leadership Academy in San Diego. A complete list of participants and scores is below.

After an hour of competition, the California State University, Fullerton Society of Automotive Engineers' trebuchet fired a pumpkin through the flags of a castle target, earning the team 100.000 points. The team was declared the winner and two students on the team were awarded internships at Booz Allen Hamilton.

Read the Daily Titan news story here. See photos at SouthOCBuzz.com. Check out video of the day's events:

Winners (100,000 points) - Society of Automotive Engineers from California State University, Fullerton

Jeff Nelson - Captain

Kevin Bosch

Mike Dickerson

Fred Hogarth

Juan Gonzales

Team Bazooka (20,000 points) – Booz Allen Hamilton

Tanya Yuan

Mori Fatehi

Mike Davenport

Krystin Baker

Matt Trinca

Amesh Pandya

Megan Morgan

Bill Chang

Khursheed Khan

Keiller Leadership Academy MESA Elite (no points)

Robert Heredia - teacher

Miguel Castillo

Itzel Garcia

Nancy Romano

Boris Stepanyok

Jovanni Soria

FSEA Pumpkin Crushers (no points/not part of official competition)

Hal Seymore

Herb Scheffler

George Westrom

Jorge Beliz

Steve Maggiano

Jim Cloonan

Paul Pooler

Deba Bhattacharyya

The 49’s (50,000 points) – Cal State Long Beach

Sean Ramirez

Rony Godoy

ASCE Pumpkin Launch Team (no points) – Cal State Fullerton

James Weldon

Matt Smith

Anthony Hangertner

Matt Thompson

Jerome Terrell

AJ Atry

Mark Hampson

Rosa Aleman

ICBM (50,000 points)– Boeing C3 Network

David Shieh

Bill Sargent

Mai Ton

Gary Wagner

Geroge Lim

Willy Irakoze

Amy Shieh

Ross Mashima

Phillip Isenhauer