Pumpkin Drop Winners Named

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.