A team of GW medical students pushed a giant homemade syringe off a 30-foot barge into Baltimore’s Inner Harbor Saturday for the city’s first-ever Red Bull Flugtag.

A Flugtag, which is German for “fly day,” involves human-powered flying machines built by teams of up to five people that compete in design, distance and showmanship. The rules state that at least one team member must man the flying machine off the edge of the ramp and into the water.

About 60,000 people traveled to downtown Baltimore to watch the event, which included 23 teams.

Flugtags have occurred in Europe since 1991 but only recently began in the United States. American Flugtags have taken place in New York, Ohio and Florida.

The GW student team created a machine called “Booster Shot” – a nearly 30-foot long, 10-foot high syringe made from wood, Red Bull vending containers and other materials. Before the syringe took flight, the group of four medical students and one brother, performed a skit where they operated on the “patient,” Ashish Lal. After the mock surgical removal of Red Bull cans, Lal began running down the ramp.

Team captain Paul Frake said the giant syringe flew over 20 feet before crashing into the water, followed by the rest of the team. He said the 30-foot drop was probably scary, but he didn’t have time to think about it. He hit the water with his face after the “Booster Shot” landed.

“I was going to jump, but when I went to jump there was nothing under my feet,” said Frake, a third-year medical student. “I leaned to the side. I was lucky I hit the water (and not the flying machine).”

Although the team did not place in the top three, they received one of the highest scores from the judges, who evaluated showmanship and creativity. Distance, measured by buoys in the water, was also a factor in the final scores.

“We got big scores, and we had a good time,” Paul Frake said. “We had to be 4th or 5th.”

The first-place team, “Victims of Soi-cumstance,” had a simple hang-glider design and a Three Stooges skit preceding their take-off, which resulted in the U.S. record of 81 feet. The team competed in New York in 2003.

Other flying machines including a stack of pancakes, a one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people-eater and a goose competed for a $7,500 pilot’s training course. Second-place winners received $3,000 worth of skydiving lessons, and third-place winners learned how to paraglide, worth $1,500.

Frake said the team learned of their selection for the contest Aug. 10. “Booster Shot” was selected out of nearly 300 submissions. Paul Frake said the design was intended to excel in style and speed, with more sturdy wheels than the other contenders.

“We wanted to do another fun thing; we’re kind of getting to the point where we have to be serious,” Frake said.

Paul Frake recruited his younger brother to help push the contraption. The recent Bucknell graduate was dressed in drag, wearing a nurse’s costume and a wig.

“(I’m wearing) Madonna boobs; someone called them missile tits earlier,” Dan Frake said. “I’m a big guy and I like beef so (my brother) is paying me in many steak dinners.”

During the event, organizers encouraged attendees to send text message votes for the people’s choice award.

Dan Frake tried to win this prize by distributing palm cards from his stuffed bra to passers-by.

Many attendees posed for photographs with Dan Frake, and Jill Johansen, 23, of Vienna, Va., obeyed the chants of her friends and stuck her face between the fakes.

“I just ‘motor-boated’ a guy with boobs,” said Johansen, who came with a group of friends to drink beer and have a good time.

Johns Hopkins nursing student Virginia Zier said the “Booster Shot” was very creative and reminded her of the syringes she recently learned how to use.

“Booster Shot” team member Ryan Pond’s fianc?e, Tammy Palmer, made the trip to Baltimore to support Pond’s team. She said her friends thought the teammates would probably injure themselves.

“I thought it was probably going to nose-dive and it didn’t,” she said of the giant syringe. “I think that they did great for their first time being in it.”