MORGANTOWN, WV (LOOTPRESS) – More than 1,000 K-12 students competed Friday at the 35th annual Pumpkin Drop at West Virginia University, organized by the Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources.
This year’s event, which drew 242 teams from 58 schools across West Virginia and Pennsylvania, raised funds for the Ronald McDonald House in Morgantown.
Students were challenged to engineer enclosures capable of protecting a pumpkin dropped from the 11-story Engineering Sciences Building.
Only 30 pumpkins survived the fall, with Team 3 from Connellsville High School winning first place, landing their intact pumpkin just one foot from the target.
Team 102 from Taylor County Middle School earned second place, and for the first time, two teams tied for third: Team 15 from Tyler Consolidated Middle School and Team 154 from Covenant Christian School.
Science teacher Amelia Mullens brought her STEM team from Barrackville Elementary Middle School in Marion County, marking her first time back at the event since the pandemic.
She described the competition as a rewarding experience, especially since one of her former students, now a WVU pre-veterinary sciences major, came to support his younger sister, a current student in Mullens’ class.
“College campuses are good for them to visit and see ‘that could be me.’ Having time to not be in class but be around a lot of science is good for them,” Mullens said.
This year’s event added an artistic twist with help from WVU’s College of Creative Arts and Media and Lane Innovation Hub, incorporating the “A” for “arts” into the traditional STEM competition.
Junior theatre design major Daney Brookover designed the Pumpkin Drop target, painted by art education major Peyton Raffel. Brookover also created the set for WVU’s “Into the Woods” production, running through Monday at the Metropolitan Theater.
Fundraising t-shirts were designed by art and design major Paige Burger and graphic design major Lizzy Sikora, while the trophies were engraved and created by the Lane Innovation Hub.
