By Chad Neal
This coming Saturday, November 1st an annual event that has been catapulted into a grand affair east of the village of Ellicottville that showcases some engineering prowess. On the grounds of the Ellicottville Distillery and Bigfoot Park Golf a group of engineers who are known as Team Urban Siege (teamurbansiege.com) will be bringing their huge trebuchet to launch pumpkins into the hill adjacent to the property (most likely stirring up the Sasquatch that reside in the forest there) for the entertainment of the many onlookers that will be there. The team has two mechanized catapulting devices to demonstrate some physics that were used in wartime centuries ago. Launching pumpkins with either a large 20-foot tall trebuchet or the more condensed version of six feet, these machines show how rapid a projectile can be shot and how far they will go. Both of the machines are very impressive as the smaller trebuchet will hurl a pumpkin several hundred feet and the larger version thousands of feet.
This has been an annual event for a while now down at 5462 Robbins Road where Bryan and Renee Scharf have the Ellicottville Distillery. A family friendly event, the Pumpkin Chunkin’ displays a powerful heaving device and will also have entertainment for the listening pleasure. A food truck will be onsite too. Captain Tom and The Hooligans will start at 3pm as pumpkins are still being flung into the front side of Bryant Hill or in the woods just below it. The delicious foods from The Grub Shack will have hot food from noon-5pm. Captain Tom and the Hooligans play music “across many genres such as Polka, Celtic Folk, Folk Rock, Ska, American and Eastern European Folk and more.” A fun party band to coincide with the awesomeness of the hurling gourds. The Grub Shack will have Smashed Cheeseburgers, Italian sausage, Tacos, Chicken Tender baskets, Loaded Nachos, Loaded Fries and Hot Dogs on the menu.
Road just up the road from the village of
Ellicottville.
The group of inspired young fellows were all freshmen at Rochester Institute of Technology (R.I.T.) when they started Team Urban Siege. Students of Mechanical Engineering and Environmental Management the original members Matt DiFranceso, Jason Nichols, and Chris Nastasi started their endeavor in the trebuchet world in the early 2000s. DiFrancesco built a small trebuchet when he was younger and was inspired when a watermelon launching competition came along and he and his long time friends decided to build a bigger one, and they built the “Melon Felon”. And they went on a year later building Jeckyl and Hyde as their first “foray into advanced trebuchet designs”.
When they learned of the World Championships of Punkin’ Chunkin’ in Delaware they made a decision to build a full scale “punkin’ chunkin’ trebuchet” and compete in 2008. They became part of the medieval machine community soon thereafter and in 2011 Nick Wendel joined the team as he learned of the phenomenon and found Team Urban Siege and asked to join with them. He had and has a welding prowess. He had built a “human-powered centrifugal catapult named the Buffalo Wing Slinger” and then in 2011 they built the hurling machine they brought to Ellicottville Distillery on November 4th, 2023 called NASAW (North American Sliding Axel Whipper).
With NASAW they topped the world record of 2034’ in it’s first competition shooting an orange gourd 2316’ to garner second place and won the World Campions of Punkin’ Chunkin’ in 2012. The team is competitive in their undertaking, but love to demonstrate the awesome launching power and sheer magnitude of their apparatus. While at the demonstration at the Ellicottville Distillery in 2023, Nick Wendel who is also owner of Wendel Poultry Farms and Wendel’s Maple and More in East Concord, New York, gave a spiel about the machine and how it works. There’s a large weight that is lifted after the pumpkin in placed in the launching basket. The slide arm on the top of the trebuchet is brought to the front of it on special vinyl wheels that can hold all that weight as it rolled on the tracks as the trigger is easily pulled to start the reaction and launch.
This exciting event is better to watch than read about, as not only will a spectacular show of flying pumpkins be viewed the music will have a great impact on the mood of the whole array. The food and superb cocktails and spirits at Ellicottville Distillery will be wonderful to take in as well. And if the weather is cooperating folks can play some Bigfoot Park Golf as pumpkins soar overhead. The plan is to have the large trebuchet shooting the big orange balls over top of the hill in a spectacle that is astounding, alas they are presently repairing the 20-foot tall machine and it will be there, but if it is not operational the smaller version will be used. The big one is super impressive, but can only chuck a pumpkin about once and hour, the smaller is more family oriented as the kids can get involved and more missiles per hour will be slung at the hilltop. Stop in, the excitement starts at noon and the music at 3pm.