Students at the University of California, San Diego’s (UCSD) Revelle College watched as their “Watermelon Queen,” Bryant Soong, dropped a watermelon from the seventh story of Urey Hall on June 3, all in the name of one of UCSD’s most time-honored traditions that has endured for 55 years. Each year, the Giant Watermelon Drop attempts to break the 1974 “splat record” in which a piece of the far-flung fruit landed 167 feet and four inches from the impact site at a velocity of approximately 112 mph. By contrast, the first year’s farthest splat measured 91 feet and this year’s measured only 70 feet. Soong sang a song at this year’s event in honor of the watermelon and his girlfriend, who made the colorful costume he donned for the occasion. The pep band then performed and the students enjoyed a carnival complete with a barbeque, music, games, prizes, cake and plenty of free watermelon — not the one that was sacrificed in the name of science, however. The tradition originated when UCSD’s first undergraduate class in 1965 took a physics course with professor Bob Swanson, who challenged his class to answer, “If a watermelon was dropped from a seven-story building, where would the farthest piece land?” The students took his question quite literally, arranging a Watermelon Queen Pageant to select the queen (who can be either male or female) and continuing the drop each year as a challenge to future students.