Blub could be your next taxi driver, thanks to a computer engineer’s groundbreaking invention!
Thomas de Wolf from the Netherlands made a unique car that contains a water tank and is directed by the movements of the goldfish inside it.
It earned him and Blub, the Italian fish, a record title for the greatest distance covered in a motion-sensing vehicle by a goldfish in 1 minute, with a whopping 12.28 metres (40 ft 3.46 in).
Don’t believe us? See them in action!
Thomas, who attempted the record on the set of our Italian TV show Lo Show Dei Record in Milan, told us:
“Normally my job is quite monotonous, so I wanted to create something that would entertain people, turning my ‘serious’ job into something fun.”
But how does Blub do it?!
Well, thanks to the car’s motion-sensing camera, every time Blub moves to one side of the tank, the vehicle moves in that direction – sounds pretty simple, right?
According to Thomas, “the objective is to show people what is possible to achieve with this kind of technology, even when it’s not necessarily something ‘serious’.”
However, as show presenter Gerry Scotti pointed out, hopefully this kind of technology could be used in the future to help people who can’t move as easily.
“I would love to maybe one day be able to help people with mobility issues,” Thomas agreed.
Wouldn’t that be awesome?
The record-breaking vehicle only works with bright red fish, so that the camera can properly catch its movements – so little Blub was the perfect driver for it!
To successfully break the record, the goldfish needed to cover a distance of at least 5 metres within 1 minute. Movement in any direction was valid, even in reverse – it’s not like Blub had anywhere he needed to be, ha!
Do you have a pet? Wouldn’t it be amazing if they could drive you around?
Official Guinness World Records Adjudicator Sofia Greenacre was there to oversee the attempt and, in order to know exactly how far Blub drove, she needed to count how many times the coloured mark on each wheel had touched the ground.
At the end of the attempt, Gerry commented: “I don’t know if it’ll be a world record, but we definitely saw something very sweet and very futuristic.”
We couldn’t agree more!
In the end, the record was officially Thomas’s (and Blub’s), with a distance way longer than the required 5 metres.
After receiving his record certificate, Thomas thought out loud: “How am I going to explain to Blub now that he has a world record title?”
Do you think Blub knows? Well, in any case, we are sure he could feel the love of the audience cheering for him!
Congratulations, you are both Officially Amazing.
