Mrs. Stapleton’s 4th-period class made a pumpkin time bomb, a concept that was taken from Jimmy Fallon and Shailene Woodley on The Tonight Show. In order to turn the pumpkin into a ‘time bomb’, 50 rubber bands were placed around the pumpkin, prior to the period. Before any more rubber bands could be placed on the pumpkin, the students were given a data set. This data set showed the different items used by the previous schools doing the same project. The dataset showed the diameter, inner wall thickness, height, and circumference of the pumpkin they used. It also listed the length and width of the rubber bands that are placed around the pumpkin. The students were then asked to pick out what they think the most important factor out of those to consider when guessing how many rubber bands it would take to break it.

Looking at the data from previous schools that did this project, the students isolated the factor they chose and the number of rubber bands their pumpkins took to break. They would select those set of data and take them into a website called desmos. In desmos, the pieces of data were used to create a scatter plot. A scatter plot is a diagram used to represent different points of data, much like a box plot. Students then made their own point, guessing how many rubber bands it would take to break their pumpkin. Time for the fun part! The students then took the pumpkin outside and got to it. One by one, students placed ru

bber bands over the middle of the pumpkin.

On the 113th rubber band, the pumpkin popped.

Now it wasn’t the giant, obnoxious explosion all the students had hoped for. On the contrary, the part of the pumpkin above the rubber bands just popped off and fell the side.Although this may sound like nothing, it still took all the students by surprise. The was no build up just a pop! In the end, the students compared their estimates to the actual result and found who was the closest.

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