Exploding Pumpkins

We did an experiment today with the grade 12 class.  We wanted to determine which measurement had the biggest impact on the number of elastics it would take to explode the pumpkins.  Some groups thought the diameter, some thought the circumference, and some thought that the wall thickness would have the biggest impact.

We carefully added elastics to the pumpkins.

We videotaped them when we could tell that they were almost ready to explode.

The end result was a pumpkin that was cut in half.  We could easily measure the diameter and wall thickness and circumference.

Tomorrow we will make scatter plots with the data from all 13 pumpkins to see what variables had the biggest correlation with the number of elastics it took to explode the pumpkin.