How Many Rubber Bands Does it Take to Explode a Pumpkin?

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Have you ever wondered how many rubber bands it would take to explode a pumpkin in half?

We took on the challenge to see how many it would take, and I tell you, to see that pumpkin explode and bust in half was really cool!

You can watch the elapsed time video of our experiment below!

It was a super simple experiment, and super fun.

All you need is a good-sized pumpkin, one that would be impressive to watch explode in two.
Plenty of rubber bands that are equal in size. We heard it would take at least 200 so be sure you have enough.
If you want to record the number of rubber bands you use, have a piece of paper and a pen/pencil handy.
And, I recommend doing this outside since it’s a little messy. 🙂
Then if you want to record it, you can have a camera/video recorder set up on a tripod near the experiment. (You’ll love watching it later!)

You can watch the elapsed time video of our experiment below!

We figured out an easy and fast way to record the number of rubber bands, so they wouldn’t get lost in their counting, and be able to keep things moving smoothly.

On a piece of paper we wrote numbers in increments of 10, like this:

10
20
30
…
140
150
…
230
240
250

And here’s the spoiler shot of our paper, which also tells the number of rubber bands it took to bust our pumpkin in half!

So the kids counted out loud each of the rubber bands they put on, and when they got to a tenth number, they crossed off that number on the paper. It did a great job at helping them keep track of it all.

It was super cool for me to watch from a distance since I could see the difference in the shape of the pumpkin as it got more and more rubber bands on it. The sides started to squeeze in a bit and I could tell it was going to pop soon!