But not the 2 I tried!
The Most Selfies in an hour was unsuccessful but you can see the pictures here and tag yourself on Facebook. We had over 900 people participate which wasn’t quite enough.
At the FIRST Robotics St. Louis Championships in 2017, I gave an hour-long talk inspiring students and educators with my STEM story. I then attempted to break the blindfolded speed juggling record: the Guinness World Record for “Most juggling catches in 1 minute blindfolded (3 balls)”. I was successful on my 2nd try but still had 4 seconds left on the clock. So I tried again, and again and again until I finished a full minute and by the time I was done, I had also tied the record for “Most juggling catches in 1 minute (3 balls)”. Period. WHILE BLINDFOLDED!
While we didn’t have sufficient participation to break the selfies record, we still took over 900 selfies in the effort to promote STEM education. I still broke two Guinness World Records today and to become the world’s fastest juggler while setting the mark for world’s fastest blindfolded juggling could have left me calling it a day’s work.
There are a few obvious things that needed to be done differently to set the record. Not least of which was better publicity, as few of the 30,000+ folks at the event were aware the record attempt was even taking place. I estimate the 2 lines I had on either side were running about 40% capacity for the hour so we were well within reach of the 1,449 needed to break the record. Thank you to all the impromptu volunteers who helped! (which was all the volunteers I had!) And thanks for all the folks who stopped by to get your picture taken! Feel free to tag yourself, the pictures are in order and taken from noon to 1 PM so you can sort of figure out about where you’d be based on when you got your picture taken.
While we failed to break the Selfies record today, failure is simply an opportunity to improve and I learned a lot today that will make me a better person (and perhaps able to set this record at a future date).
#FIRSTSelfies #FIRSTINSPIRES
