How to: Build a Gigantic DIY Pumpkin Cannon

Straying slightly from our usual daily doses of electronics and hacking, today we’re getting into the spirit of Fall by showing off some extraordinary pumpkin cannons.  First up is the world’s most powerful cannon capable of launching a squash 1 mile with an initial velocity of 600 mph!  Downright incredible stuff.  Did you know they have annual competitions for these beasts?

While you may not have a mile of open land and a huge pneumatic compressor, the odds are you have some odds and ends to build some of these more manageable cannons, catapults, trebuchet, and bazookas:

1. DIY Pumpkin Bazooka and Apple Cannon

   “For those of you who have already made a potato gun, apple cannons and pumpkin bazookas are the next advanced step, taking fun to the next level because the fun is proportional to the size of the vegetable projectile. An apple cannon is slightly bigger than a spud gun, while the “pumpzooka” is big enough that it’s easier to fire as if it were a mortar.”

2. The World’s Largest “Punkin’ Chunker”

3. Pumpkin Trebuchet Catapult

   

   Plenty of sites show us how to build our own diy trebuchets which can be used to launch pumpkins for hundreds of yards.

4. Bonus: Vortex and Smoke Cannons:

Besides vegetables, you can actually use the power of air to launch massive smoke rings, or even be powerful enough to knock down a brick wall:

• Incredible Gas Powered Vortex Canon
• Huge Smoke Ring Generator

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