most (finger) tops spinning at once (between two or three people?)

[the Earl of Whirl]

Has anyone else seen this?  It seems like something a number of us would not have any trouble beating.
It says two people but it sure looks like three to me!

http://recordsetter.com/world-record/tops-spinning/2011

[lincolnrick]

I agree, there's more than two people spinning tops.  There's a comment to that effect also.

I don't think it would be hard to beat that.  Maybe at the Mondo juggling festival, we'll take a crack at it.  Mark H. will you be there?

[Eric]

What about trying it at MadFest? Who is going to be in Madison on the 14th?

[lincolnrick]

Actually I meant to say Madfest not Mondo (I attend both), so yeah let's do this.

We'll need two people, a counter, a videographer and more than 22 finger tops.  I can help supply the tops and can spin a top.  I can count too. 

[the Earl of Whirl]

I love it!!!  What a thrill to hear of my friends going after this.

[the Earl of Whirl]

Since nothing was posted about this, is it fair to assume that no one attempted this at MadFest?

[the Earl of Whirl]

I think I did a good thing today.  I talked to my good friend Todd (who I often meet for lunch at Chipotle) about this record.  He works at the local United Art and Education store.  They usually have a large bin of finger spinners from Toysmith.  I suggested that he and some of his fellow employees could use some of their down time to get this record.  It would be good pr for their store and they sure do have plenty of little finger spinners to do the deed.

He seemed interested.  I pointed him to this website and this thread.  We will see if they follow through on it.  Hope you are reading this, Todd!!!

I will post any results in the coming days.

[lincolnrick]

Go for it!!  Sadly, the Madfest spinners were not up to the task.  This record can be broken! 

[the Earl of Whirl]

I had not heard back from my United Art and Education Store friends so I stopped by today, as it was my day off.  The first thing I looked for was their bin of finger spinners.  Sure enough, it was quite full and my guesstimation is that there are easily 150 to 200 of them in there.  Thankfully, business was slow when I arrived so I took 23 out and laid them on the counter to try to get Todd busy on the record.  It turns out that he has, indeed, been practicing a bit but he has not been working with another thrower, as I had hoped.  It didn't take long to get a bunch of those Toysmith tops going and Todd appeared to have the ability to keep a bunch whirling at once.  He quickly called over his co-worker Jarod and soon they were giving the tops a good run for their money.  It seemed like in no time they had all 23 going AND they were able to keep them going pretty well by respinning the ones that slowed down.  The group of tops were fun to watch and looked quite impressive on the counter, until a customer came up and disrupted our play.

So, congratulations to Todd Panning and Jarod Tudor who successfully beat this record.  I bought 30 tops and will head to another location to see if I can find two more people who can beat the record.  Maybe at our youth night on Wednesday?

[lincolnrick]

 

[the Earl of Whirl]

15 year old Stephen Nelson has officially declared that this record is cake.  At our youth night here at St. Jacob he spun 24 Toysmith tops all by himself!  Congrats, Stephen, on a fine display of finger spinning.  He says he will be available to sign autographs this Sunday after church.

[the Earl of Whirl]

Sorry Stephen Nelson.  You are no longer the record holder.  Mark Hayward and I spun 25 Toysmith finger tops at the same time and kept them going for quite a bit.  IMHO Stephen should get some recognition as the solo record holder at 24.

I gave the finger spinners to Mark.  He will take them with him back to Pittsburgh and use them for training for some record setting attempts in his off-Broadway show in New York City.

[the Earl of Whirl]

Here is a video of a guy spinning 16 tops and claiming a record (I think)....

world record - spinning tops

[the Earl of Whirl]

Todd Panning from the Art Education store emailed me to say he did 26 tops on the counter while waiting for customers.  I have not told him about my daughter-in-law.  I guess he can have the men's record!

[ta0]

Thanks for posting the video Mike.  We need a Japanese speaker on the forum to translate it . . .

I think the main difficulty of what he does is that he has a limited space to spin the tops, something like a 25 cm (10 inch) plate.  That requires good control so the tops do not collide.