Nelson Makechnie (Senior Project)

May 14 Woo-Hoo! World Record number three done! Noah and I were inspired by a record set by none other than Dude Perfect. That’s right, we broke a record held by Dude Perfect. The record was 35 Yards to throw a football and catch it between the legs. We wanted to go to the turf field to break the record, but the field was wet, so every time we didn’t catch the ball, we would have to wipe it off, which would be very inconvenient. A regulation basketball court measures in at 94 feet, or 31.33 yards. With the addition of the width of a baseline, and the extra distance where I was standing when the football was caught, we were just over that distance, about 36 yards.     It took a very long time. We propped a phone up to film, and lucked out and were successful within 5 tries. Unfortunately, two students came by and moved the phone. Noah wasn’t in the frame because of this. The second time, when we came back after lunch for another hour, my phone ran out of storage...

May 13 Our second record was broken, or rather created, today. We experimented a lot with saltine crackers. The goal was to eat the most saltines in a minute, which we knew would be a challenge. I thought the record was seven crackers in one minute, but it turned out to be thirteen. We me met with Buz Morrison, the Neuroscience teacher. The main problem with so many saltines is the dryness, so we started talking about ways to activate the salivary glands, as well as the benefits of being extra hydrated, or in need of electrolytes, which the body knows Saltines have. To do this, we purchased some snacks from Jakes. We selected extreme sour patch kids because of the strong scent, and Doritos. I don’t eat either of these, but I felt that the scent of Doritos would be very effective, since Doritos genetically modifies their products to hit all the tastebuds. Unfortunately, we still weren’t able to eat so many crackers in the allotted time. We decided to change things up and make a new ...

This week has been pretty successful. I’m happy about what Noah and I have done. It hasn’t all been easy, but we accomplished the goal I was most excited about, beating the record for the fastest mile while dribbling a basketball. I beat the record, which I was of course very happy about. What was really impressive and exciting, though, was Noah’s time. He had never run a mile on a track before, yet he was able to run it with basketball in five minutes, forty-seven seconds. This shows his incredible athleticism, and his drive to perform at his maximum capacity for anything, including senior project. Other than that, we’ve done work on our record book and solidifying an interview. We have gotten two response out of the many people we’ve contacted, one who said that all his interviews were paid, and one who asked if we could do the interview after June 2–that is one I really want to do. The man in question is a politician, and his record is for the most digits of pi memorized. He rec...

May 10 10:30 Noah and I spent time today doing more research. I have messaged more record holders about doing interviews with us. Unfortunately, we still haven’t gotten any responses. We want to get these interviews, and continue to reach out to record holders, but we can’t get any responses—except for the one response saying “all my interviews are paid.”     We also met with Kelly today about editing our goals. Rather than doing a ten minute video, we will be doing a very short video (under three minute) and focusing instead on the Proctor Record Book. We are excited about this, and think that it will highlight some of the members of our community. For the next week, we are going to have to do a lot of work to put this together, but we are excited for our goal. Quote of the day: (In honor of Bono’s birthday, and a reference to how people look at me and Noah now that we’ve broken world records) “Because you know when you first become famous, you start walking ...

May 9 10:50 Yesterday, I said that I was excited to let you know about our work today. I am happy to say that I am not disappointed. Today, I broke a world record. This whole school year, I have had to work down to a freshman by the name of Colin Shaver because of his status as a world record holder. It has been humiliating and degrading. No matter how much I did or how hard I worked, I could never hope to compete against his other-worldly power. Today, I have risen above his legendary prowess and beaten him. I held that power until Noah beat my time, finishing at 5:47 (his first time ever running a mile on a track in general-he collapsed afterwards). That is the epitome of a hero. I don’t feel any shame in standing next to his worshipfulness, though. I still beat Colin’s record. This summer, I think I will do this again and secure a place in the record book for sure. Quote of the day: “I sound like a broken record every time I break a record” (Eminem) Daily Hou...

May 7 11:30 Today, Noah and I worked on our Proctor record book. We talked about the format of the book so that it will be easy to update, and then met with Spencer to see how to do this most efficiently. Tomorrow, we are meeting with Lindsey so that we can get feedback from someone experienced in putting something like this together. With all her yearbook-making knowledge, we are enthusiastic about this part. We also spent time with stats. We combed through old scorebooks for basketball, only to find that most one available ones didn’t have the information we needed. Still hoping to gather data for all-time leading basketball scorer, I messaged an old player on instagram, and we’re hoping that he will respond soon. We have the stats narrowed down to four players, but we are unsure who has the most out of them. We did get the hockey stats today, though, and we are working on getting the baseball stats as well. Quote of the day: Lose your dream, you lose your mind (Rolling Ston...

May 6 10:00 Noah and I had a good time today. We had two sessions (together), 10-12 and 1-3. Both sessions were enjoyable, but the first wasn’t very fruitful. We spent most of the time writing emails. The only response we’ve gotten was a bit rude, but we’re hoping to get more responses soon. We are already planning an interview with Colin Shaver, a student with a record we are trying to beat. For our second session, we trained for the most leapfrogs in thirty seconds. The only attempt we got on video went very poorly. We jumped too early a couple time and hit our heads, and definitely weren’t close to breaking the record. However, our other attempts were a little better. During our rest periods between “sets,” we had some really great conversation about the arbitrarily and ineffectual structure of the educational system. Quote of the day: If you admire someone, you should go ahead and tell them. People never get the flowers while they can still smell them (Kanye West) Da...