Congratulations to the students from Singapore Polytechnic who broke the Guinness World Record for the fastest speed achieved by a ping pong ball.
As part of their Final Year Project (titled MAD : Mechanical Accelerator Device), graduates Teo Shao Zun, Bryan Chong Jia Xu and Phua Shin Zert, supervised by lecturer Leong Ying Wei, launched a ping pong ball at a speed of 833.33 m/s or Mach 2.43 (i.e. 2.43 times the speed of sound), which:
1) Broke the previous Guinness World Record of 806 m/s held by USA. The SP team is now the current world record holder.
2) Broke the previous Singapore Record of 428 m/s, held by SP since 2015, Singapore Book of Records
3) Broke the Mach 2 sound barrier of 686 m/s;
This is part of an ongoing industry collaboration in the area of defence technology. The project provides a convenient & safe way to test sensitive electronics with high-acceleration mechanical-shock, requiring only common gases to operate, without any combustion/pyrotechnics.
Links:
Read the news item in "The new Paper"
School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering