March 13 (UPI) -- A Netherlands engineer built a car for his pet goldfish, Blub, who drove the vehicle a distance of 40 feet in one minute to break a world record.
Thomas de Wolf constructed a four-wheeled vehicle with a water tank for a driver's seat. The vehicle is steered by analyzing the movements of the goldfish inside the tank.
"Normally my job is quite monotonous, so I wanted to create something that would entertain people, turning my 'serious' job into something fun," de Wolf said on Guinness World Records' Italian TV series Lo Show dei Record.
De Wolf said that while a car driven by a goldfish might not be particularly practical, the motion-sensing technology that it runs on could prove to be very useful to people with disabilities.
"The objective is to show people what is possible to achieve with this kind of technology, even when it's not necessarily something 'serious,'" he said. "I would love to maybe one day be able to help people with mobility issues."
Blub the goldfish was placed into the car and drove it for a distance of 40 feet and 3.46 inches, setting a new Guinness World Record for the greatest distance covered in a motion-sensing vehicle by a goldfish in one minute.
"How am I going to explain to Blub now that he has a world record title?" de Wolf mused.
