It was actually form of like tossing treats to your pet throughout coaching.

Will Sorenson and Ryan Hong each performed on the Harvard males’s volleyball group earlier than graduating final Could.

“We’d all the time have gummy bears on the sideline for fast sugar, fast vitality,” defined Sorenson, a graduate of the John A. Paulson College of Engineering and Utilized Sciences, now a mechanical engineer at Boeing. “After matches, Ryan would throw them at me, and I might catch them in my mouth.” Teammates cheered. They tried longer and longer distances. Teammates cheered louder. That ought to’ve been the tip of it.

However no. So now, the Guinness World Report for “the best distance catching a gummy sweet within the mouth” ­— 177 ft, 2 inches, to be actual — belongs to Sorenson and Hong, who carried out the stunt at Harvard Stadium a couple of days earlier than commencement in Could.

@guinnessworldrecords Best distance catching a gummy sweet within the mouth: 54 m (177 ft 2 in) by Will Sorenson and Ryan Hong 🇺🇸 #sweet #gummy #catch #catcher #guinnessworldrecords ♬ unique sound – Guinness World Information

Their feat was a primary, but it surely wasn’t Sorenson’s first Guinness. Blame it on social distancing stir-craziness, however after many apply classes from his Currier Home room through the pandemic, Sorenson (who can also be a juggler) grew to become the record-holder for “most consecutive bottle flips behind the again onto the brow” in February of 2021. Don’t ask. (It was 31.)

So after recruiting Hong, and what felt like half the volleyball group as assist employees, Sorenson started plotting a second report try: Simply how far may they launch a gummy sweet into the air, and catch it?

They did some analysis and found the prevailing report was 50 meters, or about 164 ft. And Guinness required the toss wanted to be executed “mechanically,” so off to the web for a slingshot.

Catching a gummy sweet from that distance was positive to be a choking hazard, which wasn’t misplaced on Sorenson. Fortunately, he had developed correct method — utilizing his tongue to dam the throat, so his trachea was secure.

It’s a very good factor, too, as a result of in response to a fast approximation by Harvard physics lecturer Greg Kestin, that bear may’ve been touring at a clip of near 22 miles per hour — akin to that of a raindrop falling from the clouds. (However slightly slower than a grizzly, admittedly the quickest of all bears, which may transfer at speeds as much as about 35 mph.)

Apply classes in broad daylight unearthed one massive drawback — it was laborious to see the sweet in mid-air. That was when somebody at Harvard Athletics had an thought. Might the open expanse of the soccer discipline, and an evening sky illuminated by stadium lights, make it simpler?

“After we tried it, it was like that gummy bear was glowing within the night time. You can see that factor from half a mile away,” Sorenson mentioned.

In the long run it took Sorenson and Hong simply two tries, with the achievement captured from a number of angles on smartphone video. No less than six pals have been deployed to assist with candy-spotting, verification, and video documentation, per strict Guinness guidelines. And Philip Tor, assistant athletic director, served as official surveyor, even writing a letter testifying to the report distance.

Hong, an economics and statistics grad now working in funding banking, was happy with the end result, calling it “a novel and memorable technique to finish my expertise” on the School.

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