Smashing pumpkins joins holiday fun.

Byline: Lewis Taylor The Register-Guard

Haunted houses and carving pumpkins are so last year. If you want to compete in the oversaturated market of Halloween entertainment events, you better have a good gimmick, such as a haunted hike or a crazy corn maze.

This year, it seems, creativity is more important than the fear factor.

"I think more and more families are looking for fun, nonscary things to do with their children," said Ed Gerdes, executive director of the Science Factory Hands-On Children's Museum, which is hosting its own Halloween Extravaganza.

The Science Factory has organized workshops, contests and a live science demonstration complete with animated pickles and exploding pumpkins. A planetarium show will highlight black holes and other spooky spots in the sky.

But the main attraction sounds like something you'd see on `The Late Show With David Letterman': a pumpkin catapult.

The Science Factory isn't the only one launching pumpkins into the air this year. In fact, it may not even have the most impressive European siege weapon turned Halloween entertainment device.

The Northern Lights Christmas Tree Farm was flinging gourds last weekend, and their machine can, apparently, handle much larger vegetables.

For information on the science of smashing pumpkins with a catapult, Gerdes suggests a Web site: www.geocities.com /SiliconValley/Park/6461/trebuch.html. He notes that, technically, the machine isn't a catapult but a "trebuchet," a more upright successor to the catapult that could handle heavier rocks and projectiles, flinging them greater distances and with more accuracy.

The weapon was used from A.D. 850 to 1350. Larger versions could throw large stones, cows or "shunned negotiators."

Here's an edited transcript of a conversation with Gerdes:

Question: So, what happened to just making jack-o'-lanterns? Was that not exciting enough?

Answer: We will have jack-o'-lanterns, too. Wonderful jack-o'-lanterns. We'll have a costume contest, there'll be lots and lots of candy. There'll be eight different hands-on activity stations.

Question: Is this the first year you've hurled pumpkins?

Answer: Yes, it's our first year. Lone Pine Farms does a lemon launch, so we're doing one better than them. They just launch a little lemon, so we're gonna launch pumpkins.

We get our pumpkins from Hentze Farms in Junction City. They gave us 163 pumpkins. We will have paints here, too, so that people can paint faces on their pumpkins before sending them through the air.

Question: This sounds dangerous.

Answer: No. It will be marked off, there will be a couple of targets they can shoot for. It will be very well supervised and staffed.

Question: What's the biggest pumpkin you have?

Answer: I don't know; 8 pounds.

Question: So you're not launching giant cannonballs here?

Answer: No, not the giant, 1,260-pound pumpkin from Pleasant Hill. They're big enough so that they will fly and be wonderfully visible in all their orange glory.

Question: What are the rules of pumpkin catapult?

Answer: One safety; two, have fun. Be safe, have fun. You can do a lot of wonderful things that are exciting, and if you're safe, it can be a lot of fun.

Question: Was this your idea?

Answer: This was the staff's idea. I don't know that I can attribute it to one single person.

We have a camp every summer. One of our summer camps is medieval summer camp, and in it they build catapults. So it was just kind of taking that and moving it to Halloween.

Question: Where do you get a pumpkin catapult?

Answer: We built it.

Do you know what a trebuchet is? It has two long feet on the bottom, and then it moves up horizontally. It has a leveraged arm that swings in the middle and you cock it, you put the pumpkin on it, you release it, and the bucket - the arm - shoots forward and launches that pumpkin into the sky.

We'll have one catapult. It's about 8 feet tall and 5 feet long and 3 feet wide.

Question: Where are you launching?

Answer: Here at the Science Factory. Right in front of our multicolored building.

Question: How far do the pumpkins travel?

Answer: I haven't actually shot one of the pumpkins off of it, so I don't know. We'll measure that tomorrow. (Gerdes has since tested the catapult, and the pumpkin flew about 50 yards.)

Question: So I guess you don't know what happens to the pumpkins?

Answer: Well, they're gonna explode. We have shot other things off the catapult.

Question: Like what?

Answer: This summer, they shot water balloons. They (also) made Styrofoam bodies, "Romans," that they flung into the air, you know, at the castle walls.

With the poundage, we know approximately how it will work

Question: Will people get a chance to release the lever?

Answer: Yes, the kids will be able to. We're not going to let the adults do that.

Lewis Taylor can be reached at 338-2512 or [e-mail].

CAPTION(S):

Testing the Science Factory's pumpkin-launching catapult are (from left) Executive Director Edward Gerdes, Oregon graduate student Sabrina Hershey and Tom Mayer, the museum's curator of exhibits. INSIDE Fright nightlife: Surveying the club scene on Halloween / 12 Miscellaneous mayhem: For those passing on the bars / 12