Lake Orion Pumpkin Launch 2009

Well, the launching is over and we are.....not the winner. Absolutely ridiculous. I mean, if you start a competition and are in charge of it, you think you could rig it so you win it. Of course that is not the point of the Launch. I wanted it to be a straight up competition and it was. The sad truth is that we didn't kow our machine well enough. After reviewing the footage post-event I realized that our launch angle was too low. We were releasing at about a 30-35 degree angle, not the 45 degrees that we wanted. I will be watching this very closely at Punkin Chunkin in two weeks. I plan on bringing all of my technology to bear on this event. I will have the slow motion video camera, the mobile broadband enabled laptop and possibly an accelerometer attached to the throwing arm to determine if that throw was more forceful than the previous.
I know that I said I would blog live from the event (sorry Joe) but I was too busy running the event and running the machine to even think of blogging. Hopefully things won't be so hectic at Punkin Chunkin. I will certainly keep everyone up to date on our progress. See you November 6th-8th.

Lake Orion Pumpkin Launch

The Lake Orion Pumpkin Launch is this Saturday and preparations are going very well. First we found out that it takes 2 people about a day to completely disassemble Telos. Next we found out that it takes 2 people about a day to assemble Telos. That was a great revelation. WE had been anticipating 3 people 2 days. We are very excited about this. We expect to have videos and details about Telos available starting on Sunday. Pictures of Telos have already been published in the Lake Orion Review and in Teachers Discovery catalog. In the catalog, Telos is listed for sale for a very high price. We are not really looking to sell it, but if someone wants to pay that much, we will make them their own.
I plan on blogging live from the Lake Orion Launch so if you are interested in our distances check in periodicially. The event starts at 11 and the measured launches should be in by 12.