VINEYARD, Utah — Halloween is always a smash hit for the younger generations.
“I feel like it’s everybody’s favorite, dressing up and having a good time,” said Brad Law, an activities chair with the Utah Valley University Student Association.
But once you get to college, trick-or-treating loses some of its style.
“I was trying to think of something that isn’t just carving pumpkins or painting them,” Law said.
When Law was chosen to come with a student event for this October, he had to find another way to pull his fellow UVU students into a night at the pumpkin patch.
With a little musical inspiration, his idea took off.
“There’s the band, The Smashing Pumpkins… it just kind of was in my brain,” said Law.
Law gathered a group of UVU engineering students to build their own ‘punkin chunkin’ catapult. He also put out the call to the surrounding community to come to the UVU Doterra Training Dome in Vineyard.
On Friday, they unloaded 250 pumpkins and let students and families alike decorate them and then watch them get hurled to an early grave.
Law also brought in a non-profit group called REACH which had its own medieval-style trebuchet.
“We’re Raising Education through Arts, Characters and Heroes, and what we do is go to schools and we do various different programs such as anti-bullying, history, art and STEM,” said Oliver Jones.
As he labored away and loaded up pumpkin after pumpkin, Jones explained this was a part of the STEM program.
“It’s all about teaching kids,” Jones said. “To get kids interested in engineering degrees and get them hands-on learning.”
But the idea of using a catapult actually originated from their anti-bullying class.
“We were talking to kids about tearing down social barriers, and so we thought it’d be fun idea to have little catapults knock down boxes,” said Jones.
Targets they lined up 180 feet out in the field took on a higher meaning in some of their presentations.
“I built a little catapult called an onager, and it just kind of grew from there,” Jones said.
On the other side of the launchpad, the students ran into some trouble with the short time frame they had to build.
“They’ve really only been working on it for a month, and they’re full-time students, and they work as well,” said Law.
“Is it going to go as far as theirs? Probably not,” one of the students remarked.
On launch day, during their final test, the student association’s trebuchet broke. So they had to do even more hands-on learning with onlookers waiting and watching for their creations to let fly.
“They’ve just been shooting straight backwards and shooting straight into the ground,” said Grant Clark, another engineering student who worked on the project.
But after a while, the team put the pieces back into place, shook off the cobwebs and sent some pumpkins sky-high.
“I cannot believe that worked! I cannot believe it,” a joyous Clark said amid high-fives and applause from the crowd.
It was an orange-colored spin on perseverance and spirit ahead of the spooky holiday.
“Helping people to get into that spirit, giving them a little jumpstart into the fall festivities,” Law said. “Ultimate target? Just having a good time.”