Candy Launching Pumpkin: How to make

Trick with treats, for Halloween this year I decided not to hand out candy. Instead I decided to launch candy at high speed at kids. This plan came about merely 2 days before Halloween and was executed with materials scavenger from the bone yard at LVL1 Hackerspace. It was a lot of fun and I am happy with how it turned out but with such a short time frame and the hack job it is I had to leave out and things I will do another way next time. I will try to cover all of them in this instructable.

The propulsion system inside of the pumpkin is two fans that have had their blades replaced with fabric disk. The candy is funneled into the spinning disk then shot out of the mouth. It works the same way tennis ball or baseball launchers work.

Step 1 Materials

Materials:
*Pumpkin
*2 small fans
*scrap wood
*Scrap fabric
*Glue (I used hot)
*Nuts and bolts or screws
*Candy

Tools:
*Pumpkin carving knife
*Drill
*Saw (metal if your fans are metal)
*Marker
*Scissors

Comments

[embochner]

what kind of fabric did you use? did you glue the layers of fabric together?

[lvl_joe]

I used fleece. It was just what I had laying around but it worked out well as it was nice and soft when I would stick my hands into it.

I did not glue the layers together but I glued them all to the center of the fan. At first I was going to sew them to each other like you see with a buffing wheel. After playing with it I found that gluing them down one at a time worked well as I needed to trim them anyways and it was hard to find the trouble spots when it was fully loaded up.

[embochner]

oh ok i understand, did any small candies get stuck in between the layers?

[lvl_joe]

I did not have any problems with them getting stuck in between the layers. I did have problems with them falling under the wheels before I added the platform to keep them at wheel level.

[gdhenson]

Looks like a bonnet from a high speed or orbital buffer.