There is no better way to relieve election-day stress than to watch Iowa State design students smash the heck out of seasonal fruit.

Design professor Bill Boon has once again challenged his Introduction to Creativity 129 students to devise innovative, yet humorous ways to aid in the post-Halloween ritual of disposing of the popular gourds.

“Pumpkins are somewhat of a fascination this time of year — they are so colorful and seasonal,” Boon said. “So it seems it might be as much fun to destroy them as it is to buy them in the first place.”

Boon said sledge hammers were ruled out as weapons of destruction, calling them much too easy to use and unoriginal.

This year’s event marked the second year in a row Boon has sponsored the event.

The squash pummeling began Tuesday at 2 p.m. in Lot D4 of the Iowa State Center parking area.

There were pumpkins as far as the eye could see in the parking lot. Students were carrying all sorts of pumpkins — big ones, little ones, oval ones, round ones, cylinder-shaped ones and even near-square ones.

Last year’s contest was more of a “pumpkin hurling” competition, Boon said, while this year the emphasis was placed more on destruction.

Boon said some designs last year were quite rambunctious and elaborate, and he was expecting the same this year.

Designs this year varied from pumpkin guillotines and pumpkin smashers to flying pumpkins and pumpkin piniattas actually filled with candy.

Some students even decorated their pumpkins like baseballs and pitched them to each other, while others used golf clubs and pretended to be on the PGA tour.

Many of the pumpkins were hollowed out before their destruction, while some were filled with other substances to make their destructions resemble those of human heads or bodies.

Last year, Boon said, most pumpkins were only thrown about 20-30 feet; however, one contraption in particular was more successful than the others.

“Last year we had a someone use a boat tow to launch the pumpkins,” he said. “They wound up an elastic cord to throw the pumpkins and threw one about 100 yards.”

Boon said last year he was worried some of the efforts might effect the traffic on Elwood Drive, but he wasn’t concerned with it this year.

ISU students are not the only ones to participate in such a ritual. Boon said he heard about other contests in Wisconsin, where contestants use gunpowder and explosives.

Boon told of one contest in New Jersey where no gunpowder is used but participants use other propulsion systems.

“Someone in New Jersey sent a pumpkin about half-a-mile,” Boon said.

The mass pumpkin destruction is not only fun for the students, but for Boon as well.

“I’m always amazed at what things some people come up with,” he said. “It’s like Christmas — there are some big surprises and some not so big surprises.”

Before the competition, Boon said he was expecting to see things such as a typewriter that destroys the pumpkin as it types out a message, or even a “Chuck E. Cheese” contraption where the pumpkins bob up and down while one tries to hit them with a mallet.