How about some real-life fruit ninja with a twist? Jonathan Hannon and I broke the Guinness World Record’s title for “most kiwifruits sliced in one minute while standing on a swiss ball”

This record was attempting during the filming for the Science of Guinness World Records exhibit that will travel around the US and Canada for about 7 years starting in 2020.

We practiced with ping pong balls. Most would simply bounce off the blade, some would get nicked, but I also sliced through several when I got overzealous. More than a few bounced back and hit Jonathan in the face. Fortunately, kiwis don’t do this.

When we first put the 100lbs on the swiss ball to ensure it was properly inflated it compressed too much so we had to add a couple hundred more pumps of air (it can’t compress more than 20% with 100 lbs of weight). The first time I was getting on I fell off which is more than a little scary with a sharp samurai sword in tow.

This one was tricky because standing on a swiss ball is significantly harder than standing on a roller board or riding a unicycle. It’s much easier to fall off and in fact, I did twice, the first time when I tried to mount and the second a few seconds before the minute expired. Fortunately, we’d already passed the mark of 35 sliced to break the record with 62 successfully sliced before I fell off.

We also had to time the throws correctly because the next kiwi couldn’t be thrown until the prior one had either been sliced or the unsliced one had hit the ground. The other important thing was to make sure I didn’t slice the sword up and down at the resonant frequency of me bouncing on the ball otherwise I’d bounce right off like you do when jumping on a trampoline.

The large pieces of kiwi were washed, sliced and eaten and the little pieces were put in the city compost.