just another day at the office

Last Saturday i went to work to get trained on this sophisticated scientific apparatus:

That would be you your basic chuck-things-off-the-roof-to-see-if-they-bounce-or-splat tube. It is about 40 feet above the official drop-stuff-here tarp:

This is highly sensitive and delicate stuff, people; you can see why there needs to be training.
The bottom team gathers an audience, pumps them up and controls the timing of the drops:
Meanwhile, the roof team (okay, really it is a roof person, but since i was there training we'll call it a team) lines up that round of objects to be dropped,

sounds the air siren and does the actual chucking.

To be sure that it hits the tarp and not the glass windows of the museum, co-worker Chris uses both a shoving pole and a poking pole, all while remaining in contact with the bottom team:

Watch out below!

over-ripe papaya

goodbye watermelon

To get these pictures i had to be at the edge of the roof, so i have no idea how things looked when they hit. However, i can report that 2 seconds after the watermelon, the whole front of the crowd had stepped back and was laughing hard:

is there any in my hair?

Tomorrow (Sunday) i am Drop Captain, which means that i get to choose what gets chucked. I know i am going to do a case of mustard -the bottle claims to be unbreakable; we'll just see about that-, gallon jugs of colored water and watermelons.However, i am open to suggestions.
What would you like to see tossed off of the roof of a museum, to certain death 40 feet below?
[remember, there is an audience, so as much as i really, really, really want to do electronics and other explode-on-impact glass things, we can't do anything that will cause razor sharp shrapnel]
If you happen to be in the Inner Harbor tomorrow, come see what i end up shoving down the tube around noon, 2:00 and 4:00!