Trebuchet you say?

My oldest is a junior in high school. Her physics teacher told her class that a rival high school's physics class challenged them to see who could build a machine that could throw a pumpkin the farthest. You might have heard of this phenomena called pumpkin chunkin'? Well, my daughter and her all girl team built a trebuchet. They did the calculations. They made the plans. They got nearly everything donated by local businesses. And by "they" I mean they did it themselves. A few of the dads were on hand to help with heavy lifting and such, but when I say that these girls built this machine, I mean, these girls built this machine. And brought it to a local festival to test out before the official competition. And had all the other pumpkin chunkers at the festival unable to stay away. They all wanted to see their machine work and offer tips and suggestions on how to make it better. It was the coolest. Do you remember that scene in the movie A League of Their Own when Tom Hanks is the baseball coach to all woman baseball team? One player starts crying and Tom Hanks says, "There's no crying in baseball!" As I sat as a spectator watching these girls launch pumpkins and walk away victorious, I had tears in my eyes. And I just kept telling myself, "There's no crying in pumpkin chunkin! Pull yourself together!"

-dana