World's Tallest
Tower of Pencils
On
Friday, October 20, 2006 (from 1:00-5:00 PM), several dozen ninth grade
students at Eisenhower Junior High School in Taylorsville, Utah, broke
the world record for the Tallest Tower of Pencils. They successfully made
a tower of pencils that used 1,943 pencils and measured precisely nine-feet
six-inches tall.
The world record for the Tallest Tower of
Pencils is recognized by the European organization for Alternative World
Records and the American Pencil Collectors Society.
There are eight rules for making the Tallest
Tower of Pencils. They are as follows:
1) Three or more students may attempt to construct the tallest free-standing
tower of unsharpened pencils-- which are no longer than 7-1/2 inches in
length and no wider than 5/16 of an inch in width. No adhesives or other
supporting materials may be used to support the pencil tower, and no notches
or groves may be cut into the pencils to support the tower. 2) The width
of the pencil tower must not exceed three feet in diameter. 3) Once students
have placed the pencils in a particular position they may not substantially
reposition them to offer support or prevent the tower from collapsing.
However, they may remove pencils from the top of the developing tower
and replace them at any point in the building process. 4) Pencils may
be arranged in any fashion. 5) All pencils forming the tower must be visible
at all times. 6) There is no time limit to this event. 7) The height of
the pencils used to construct the tower--from its base to its top--must
be determined to the closest 1/8 of an inch by using a precise method
of measurement. (One-eighth of an inch is equal to 0.3175 centimeter.)
8) The number of pencils used to construct the tower--from its base to
its top--should be accurately counted (or reasonably estimated if the
tower collapses prior to its pencils being counted).
On March 21,
2005, Eisenhower Junior High School set the first world record for the
tallest pencil tower. This first pencil tower--shown in the pictures below--used
1,466 pencils and measured 7 feet, 2 and 1/2 inches high.
On October
20, 2006, several dozen ninth grade students at Eisenhower Junior High
School in Taylorsville, Utah, broke the world record for the Tallest Tower
of Pencils--shown below--when they constructed a pencil tower that used
1,943 pencils and measured nine-feet six-inches tall.
On June 24-27,
2007, the America Pencil Collector Society Convention held in Trenton,
MO., USA, certified the following World Record for the Tallest Pencil
Tower--shown below--that was set by several 13-to-19 year-old students
from Trenton High School (1415 Oklahoma Avenue, Trenton, MO, 64683) who
built a pencil tower that measured 12-feet and used 1,308 pencils.
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