Pumpkin Chunkin'

Get ready for a day of engineering, coding, creativity, and flying pumpkins! Pumpkin Chunkin’ is returning to the San Diego Air & Space Museum on October 10, from 10 am to 1 pm bringing hands-on STEM challenges and plenty of Halloween fun for kids and families.

This year, we’re excited to welcome a local high school robotics team, who will show visitors some of their amazing robot creations and demonstrate what goes into designing, building, and coding a competition robot. Young engineers can then try their own hand at solving Halloween-themed challenges throughout the museum.

Activities will include:

Build a Catapult: Design and construct a catapult, then see how far you can launch a candy pumpkin!

Pumpkin Parachutes: Create a parachute designed to help a pumpkin make a safe landing.
3D Pen Spider Webs: Experiment with 3D pens to create creepy-crawly spider webs.
Code a Mouse: Program a robotic mouse to navigate its way through a maze.

Create a Monster: Use if-then statements to design a monster that reacts to different situations.

And, of course, the highlight of Pumpkin Chunkin’ is the moment everyone waits for the PUMPKIN DROP! Watch as pumpkins take flight in a spectacular finale that combines a little Halloween fun with a lot of physics and engineering.

There will be one small difference this year: the museum is currently covered in scaffolding as part of ongoing work on the building. So a new and exciting pumpkin platform will be used.

Halloween Fun for Everyone

Pumpkin Chunkin’ is included with museum admission, and October is Kids Free Month at the San Diego Air & Space Museum! During October, up to two children per one paid adult admission can visit the museum for free.

Youth groups are welcome, too! Groups of 10–25 youth and their chaperones can attend for free with advance registration. To preregister your group, email education@sdasm.org.

Costumes are welcome! Come dressed as your favorite astronaut, scientist, robot, monster, or anything else you can imagine.

Join us for Pumpkin Chunkin’ and discover that some of the best Halloween fun comes with a little engineering mixed in!