Brazilian YouTubers Reach New Heights with Tallest Popsicle Stick Tower
A popular Latin American YouTube channel broke the Guinness World Record by building the world’s tallest Popsicle stick tower, standing over 70 feet tall. Despite numerous challenges, the team’s resilience and determination led to this remarkable achievement.
By Beth Snider · January 4, 2024
Manual do Mundo, the prominent YouTube channel for science and technology in Latin America, has achieved a remarkable feat by breaking the Guinness World Record for the world’s tallest Popsicle stick tower. Hosted by the dynamic duo Iberê Thenório and Mari Fulfaro, the educational channel has once again demonstrated its commitment to entertaining and educating its audience through creative endeavors.
The channel documented the large-scale scientific experiment as it came to life on December 4, 2023. The towering structure, using 17,000 sticks, reached an astonishing height of 78.1 feet. Constructed in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the record-breaking achievement required the collaborative efforts of a dedicated team of 16 individuals, with the construction process presenting numerous challenges that tested the team’s resolve.
The most challenging part was to put the tower up. It was too tall and had a lot of fragile connections. It broke three times before we could put it up. And shortly after it fell due to wind. Luckily, the measurements could be done just in time.
Despite setbacks and structural failures, the team persisted, and while the tower’s fragile connections and towering height made it a daunting task, the team’s commitment to achieving their goal eventually paid off. GWR’s Official Adjudicator, Camila Borenstain, played a crucial role in ensuring that the record attempt adhered to guidelines and specifications. Manual do Mundo, known for its entertaining educational content, has a history of setting records featured on their Portuguese-language science and technology YouTube channel.
“We had to learn a lot to build this tower. There was a whole engineering study, a production schedule, and figuring out how to transport the tower. The achievement is not only reaching the expected result, but it’s also about every challenge faced, everything learned along the way until getting there,” emphasized Mari Fulfaro.
The science and technology channel, also boasting the highest number of subscribers, held a verified total of 12,099,219 on May 17, 2019 (now over 18M subscribers). Additionally, they did hold the record for the largest elephant’s toothpaste fountain, covering an area of 275.91 m² was verified on December 5, 2019, but subsequently surpassed by KiwiCo (USA) in Los Angeles, California, on January 24, 2022, with a volume of 342.52 cubic meters.
The previous popsicle stick tower record holder by a team in Alberta, Canada in June 2023, measured 41 feet and 1 inch and was surpassed by a significant margin. Manual do Mundo’s achievement in creating the world’s tallest Popsicle stick tower adds another accolade to their list of records.