WHEN: Saturday, November 8, 2025
Meet at playground blacktop door by 3:00 PM with team for contest photos; Platinum Pumpkin Palooza is held from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM with Pumpkin Plop Roof Drop at 3:30 PM
WHERE: Darnestown Elementary School (DES)
COMPLETION DEADLINE: All Devices must be completed by Thursday, November 6, and we would love to have a picture of your entry that evening so that we can hype your Device to the DES community! Email your photo to DarnestownPTA@gmail.com.
DELIVERY OF DEVICE TO DES: We ask for your team’s Device to be dropped off at DES the morning of Friday, November 7, before 11:00 AM so that it can be displayed during lunch that school day. All team members are highly encouraged to attend the actual Plop Drop event and support the DES PTA!
EVENT CONTACT: Tim Foley, pumpkinplopdrop@gmail.com
PURPOSE & GOAL: The 2025 Annual Pumpkin Plop Roof Drop Contest (the Plop Drop) is intended to be an exciting spectacle event during the DES PTA’s “Platinum Pumpkin Palooza” fall festival. This marks our 4th year of carrying out this fun-filled Mustang tradition.
The practical goal for the entrants in the Plop Drop is to protect a pumpkin from a roughly three-story plunge off the top of the DES roof. Teams will work together to design an enclosure/apparatus (a Device) that meets contest rules, to ensure their pumpkin survives the fall unscathed. Each team’s Device will be displayed during the Pumpkin Palooza event and then dropped from the roof near the end of the event. The surviving pumpkin that lands closest to a target on the ground will be the Plop Drop winner!
APPLICATION DEADLINE: All interested teams must complete our online form by no later than Sunday, October 26. No formal application is required, but space may be limited due to time constraints. You will be asked to give your team and/or Device a name–be creative!
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER YOUR TEAM ONLINE
**PLEASE NOTE: For safety reasons, team members will not be able to access the roof and all Device drops will be carried out by a small team of event organizers/administrators.
RULES & REQUIREMENTS
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We very much want this to be a fun, awesome, and crowd-pleasing event. BUT THE SAFETY OF PARTICIPANTS AND OBSERVERS WILL BE THE #1 RULE.
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All teams must include at least one (1) member from a DES family, faculty, or staff.
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All pumpkins and Device supplies must be provided by the team.
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Pumpkins must be real pumpkins, approx. 10 inches in diameter. No carving, emptying, or altering of the pumpkin is allowed.
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The entire weight limit of the Device, i.e., pumpkin and structure combined, is 20 pounds.
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The Device must be designed so that it can be easily dropped by a single adult and cleaned up within 3 minutes after hitting the ground.
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No team member will be allowed to participate in the drop or be present in the immediate drop zone area.
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Devices must free fall (for example, no tethers or bungee cords), and land within the designated drop zone.
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Any Devices that employ parachutes must be designed so that the parachute is dropped at the same time as the Device or prior to the pumpkin, not after.
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The contents and structure of the Devices must be designed with spectator safety first in mind and also respect for DES property.
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No hard materials like wood, metal, hard plastic, PVC pipe, or glass. Plastics should keep their shape and not shatter or fragment.
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No pyrotechnics, incendiary, electrical, or noise-making components or materials.
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No messy stuff, like liquids, gels, gelatin, food stuff, glitter, etc.
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No Styrofoam spray (i.e., Great Stuff or similar products), and no Styrofoam peanuts, glitter, or other small, non-biodegradable packing fillers or decorative elements.
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Creative team names and design themes are highly encouraged but must be age-appropriate for an elementary school audience.
