NorCal Residents Break Guinness World Records In 2021

WALNUT CREEK, CA, — Call them weird or wonderful, 2021 Guinness World Record breakers came out of the woodwork in California.

After the 2020 California Guinness World Record-breaking year during the pandemic, these Californians still made their mark in the Guinness Book of World Records in 2021. Some hopefuls worked to attain records they already held, and others were determined to make their mark against the gold standard for measuring feats of strength, endurance, and out-of-this-world oddities.

Using The Force With This Award-Winning Collection

A Petaluma man has amassed the largest collection of "Star Wars" memorabilia. Steve Sansweet maintains the record, originally won on May 4 in 2015.

All of his collection has been audited and cataloged, and he expects the process to take years to complete as his collection continues to grow. At last count, he has almost 500,000 unique items in his award-winning collection, according to Guinness World Records.

Pulling His Weight With Pull Up Award In Northern California

Novato resident Philip Grauss tried his hand at the most switch grip pull-ups in one minute.

In January, Grauss worked to achieve27 switch grip pull-ups in one minute.

"If you work hard, you can achieve your goals, no matter how daunting," Grauss said after completing the feat.

Domino Robot Dominates Record In Mountain View

A robot designed by Mark Rober, Josh Kelly, Alex Baucom, Alex Nagy, Jon Marcu, John Luke Miller, and Chris Bozak managed to set up and topple 6,141 dominoes in one hour, according to the Guinness World Records.

In July, the Mountain View-based robot placed palettes of 300 dominoes at a time to complete the task.

Later this year, Rober and his went on to use his robot known as The Dominator, to win another world record, with a mural based upon 100,000 dominoes within 24 hours.

"I suck at dominoes, but I'm good at engineering," Rober says.

This Brewery Is Going Farther

Chico-based Sierra Nevada Brewing Company tried their hand at an unlikely Guinness World Record in March.

The brewery wanted up to see if their trebuchet would fling a projectile farther than any other. In March, they proved that yes! it could.

The Sierra Nevada Brewing Company earned its record by flinging an object 133.75 or 438.81 feet and the projectile was airborne for approximately 5.53 seconds.

A World Record Of A Different Type

Leave it to the brainiacs at Stanford University's Howard Hughes Medical Institute for this one.

The Guinness World Record for the fastest typing speed achieved using a brain-computer interface was achieved in May. The work aims to help those suffering from paralysis, according to a report from hhmi.org.

"As the participant imagined writing a letter or symbol, sensors implanted in his brain picked up on patterns of electrical activity, which an algorithm interpreted to trace the path of his imaginary pen," Credit: F. Willett et al./Nature 2021

The subject, a 65-year-old participant in the research study, achieved typing 90 characters per minute with 94 percent accuracy, the study shows.

The results were published in Nature.

Celebrity Awards In 2021

Columbian singer Shakira now holds the Guinness World Record for the Most Likes for a woman on her Facebook page.

As of April, Shakira has earned 111,705,557 likes, as compared with Rihanna (97,458,331) and most liked person, soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, who at that time had 124,726,150 likes.

Vice President Kamala Harris Makes History, And World Record

Starting in January, Kamala Harris set three Guinness World records at once as she began her role as the 49th Vice President of the United States on January 20, 2021.

• The first South Asian American Vice President of the USA.
• The first Black Vice President of the USA.
• The first female Vice President of the USA.

Have you ever set your sights on winning a Guinness World Record? Register at www.guinnessworldrecords.com to learn more and let us know when you do for a chance to be featured on Patch California.