Lake Orion hosts 4th annual Pumpkin Launch

LAKE ORION, Mich., Oct. 16 (UPI) -- Lake Orion, Mich., hosted its fourth annual Pumpkin Launch, an event utilizing physics to send pumpkins flying hundreds of feet across a field.

Four teams used devices called trebuchets, Middle Age war machines similar to catapults, to hurl pumpkins into the far distance Saturday, the Detroit Free Press reported.

The event was started by Mike Toth, 31, a teacher and Lake Orion councilman, after he watched a television program about the trebuchet four years ago.

The device uses a system of pulleys, hooks and counterweights to propel whatever is in its cradle.

Toth along with Ryan Richert, 33, raised funds to build a 37-foot trebuchet, which they dubbed Telos, and begin the annual pumpkin launch.

"It's a weird opportunity. It's fun to explore something different than every other part of life," said Richert.

Telos won for distance, sending a pumpkin 903 feet into the distance.

Several teenagers and younger kids participated in the event. Toth said he uses the devices to teach his students about physics.

Lars Joergens-Kokate, 14, a freshman at Oxford High School, said he learned the relationship between force and mass through adding weights to the system and witnessing a objects go further as a result.

Adam Van Dellen, 8, is building a model trebuchet after pulling the cord on smaller trebuchets Saturday.

"I like to watch it explode," he said. "It's a new kind of food war."