Original subtitles

[narrator] On this episode of How Tech Works..

Trying not to have a blast.

How cutting edge technology is being used to diffuse bombs

from World War II that are still live!

And... we meet a husband and wife team responsible

for some of the coolest vehicle designs,

all built from scratch.

[show intro]

[upbeat electronic music]

Hi there! My name is Dr. Basil

and you are in for one phenomenal episode

of How Tech Works.

We’re going to go ten rounds with a life-size,

rock-'em, sock-'em mechanical boxer.

Plus, we’ll see

how the creation of a lunar land rover

requires hi-tech knowhow...

and ping pong balls.

But first...

the team of two in this next story

perfectly captures the creative spirit

of invention and innovation.

Not only have they been working together

on their hand-made creations for years,

they are also husband and wife.

So, really, you could call it a labor of love

that is equal parts art and science.

I present to you...

the drivable dragons.

[narrator] Inside this workshop,

evil is lurking.

Right now, it’s just lines on paper.

But soon, this husband and wife team

will unleash their beasts on the world!

Introducing... the serpent twins.

The serpent twins are Jolungul, and Jormungand.

I can’t even pronounce the names of these things. [chuckles]

[Kyrsten] Jolungul is the rainbow serpent.

So she’s a bringer of light and hope.

While Jormungand is what we’re always sort of afraid of

out in the dark.

[narrator] With thousands of custom built parts,

an arsenal of intricate electronics,

and just a few months ‘til burning man festival,

for these two, there’s no time to rest.

It’s a really big project for us.

I hope our marriage survives. [chuckling]

[narrator] Jon Sarriugarte and Kyrsten Mate

have been building wild wheels since their marriage in 2004.

The first year we were together we built a crazy little art car

for Burning Man called the SS Alpha Fox.

After that, we decided to build a giant snail.

What ended up being the Golden Mean.

The next project we did was the electrobyte.

It’s a trilobite, prehistoric vehicle

that we built on a wheelchair.

And then, did the Zeppelini,

which is kind of a steampunk vehicle

for World War II.

[narrator] This time around,

the team is taking their cue from an unlikely source.

Sitting in an airport

and watching the little tug motors drive around

the, uh, baggage carts.

And I thought, wow,

that would be a really cool little creature.

I really like how that moves.

So that was my inspiration.

[narrator] But instead of baggage carts,

Jon and Kyrsten are using sleek 55-gallon drums.

Ten white plastic and ten black steel.

To match the scale of the barrels,

I knew I needed a fairly narrow vehicle,

that also had a good tow capacity.

So I, I spent months looking for that vehicle.

[narrator] When a local car factory closed down,

opportunity knocked on Jon’s door

in the form of a three-wheeled warehouse cart.

- Two for twelve hundred bucks. [clanging]

[Jon] They’re made to tow, so they were perfect for us.

A lot of torque, not a lot of speed.

[narrator] The next challenge;

building an unforgettable light show

into the belly of their beasts.

[upbeat electronic music]

[Kyrsten] We’re adding a lot more of the,

this kind of cutting edge technology,

that actually, I don’t know how, we’re going to accomplish.

[Jon] We’re pushing the envelope

on almost all this stuff.

[narrator] The rainbow serpent

has 300 fully programmable red, green and blue LEDs

per barrel.

Linked to custom built software,

moving patterns of any color can be sent from head to tail.

For the dark serpent,

the team took a different approach.

[Kyrsten] We laid out a pattern of scales,

and then cut them out

and popped each scale out a little bit,

so it made a scale pattern through the whole thing.

[Jon] We filmed fire,

and then used that, that playback loop,

in the LEDs so, from a distance,

it, it’s pretty convincing that it’s on fire.

[narrator] Now the final part, and biggest challenge of all.

Turning all these parts into two giant snakes.

There’s a lot of technical skills in this project...

Blacksmithing, sheet metal work, welding, uh, finish work.

At this point, we have 40 people on the crew.

[narrator] As usual, one of those members

is Jon and Kyrsten's five year old daughter,

Zolly May.

I remember when we first took her to preschool

and her telling everybody,

"Oh, I have a giant snail!"

And the teachers sort of looking at me

and looking at her and going, "Yeah right, a giant snail."

[futuristic music]

[narrator] As the electronics and metal work

finally come together,

five months of hard work light up the Oakland night.

I was just like, "Oh, my God!

Look at this thing. This is just gorgeous!"

I was so exhausted that I never had that moment.

[narrator] Out on the plain at Burning Man,

as the grand finale unfolds

the giant serpent twins look right at home.

[Kyrsten] When we finally took them out there,

it was so great to see everybody look at them.

They were just floored,

and it was really, it was really great...

[Jon] It’s moments like that, when you realize,

we did a really good job, and it was very successful.

And appreciated.

This next story

has a slightly different tone to it,

as it underscores the necessity for having high-tech expertise

in critical and explosive job situations.

You see, even though World War II ended

more than six decades ago,

astoundingly, there are still live bombs

in some of Germany’s busiest centers.

So we take you now to Brandenburg,

where you will meet members

of the highly skilled bomb squad.

If you think your job is stressful...

take a look at this.

[narrator] Bernd Schäfer is a troop leader

in Brandenburg’s bomb squad.

Today he’s on his way to investigate

a possible live bomb.

One of 30,000 that fell on his town in World War II.

As opposed to any other place in Germany,

the problem that we face here in Oranienburg

is that during the war

bombs with time-delay fuses were dropped.

[narrator] Today,

the 40,000 residents of Oranienburg

live over hundreds of tons of unexploded munitions.

The most lethal of the lot:

An American-built time bomb

that's still ticking after all these years.

The danger is that these kinds of bombs

can explode at any time.

It’s already happened six times in Oranienburg,

when bombs suddenly blew up all by themselves.

[narrator] Any movement could set them off...

So if they can't be immobilized and defused...

The town is evacuated for a kilometer

in every direction.

[man counting down in German] [bomb exploding]

[narrator] And the bomb squad detonates them.

Today’s threat...

a large metal object has been detected

beneath a residential neighborhood.

A bomb detection contractor

is carefully digging to take a closer look.

Bernd knows that precision is paramount...

Because one of these time-delay bombs

just killed three of his colleagues.

[sirens]

It happened a few days ago in Göttingen.

When they tried to defuse a bomb at a construction site.

Word from police sources is... Somebody made a wrong move.

Well, it was a truly sad occasion.

And the lesson we’ve learned from all of this

is that we need to concentrate and focus on our work.

[narrator] Oranienburg was targeted for intense bombing

because atom bomb-related work was going on there.

To cause chaos,

one in five bombs had time-delay fuses in the tail.

As they fall...

rushing air turns an arming vane.

It turns a threaded spindle,

Which crushes an ampoule

containing the solvent acetone.

The acetone dribbles down and soaks a piece of felt

the bomb hits...

But it doesn’t explode.

The acetone slowly eats away at celluloid parts

holding back a spring-loaded firing pin.

By controlling how fast

the acetone consumes the celluloid

detonation can be delayed to up to six days.

But when these bombs hit Oranienburg

many of time-delay fuses were slowed down even more...

It’s because of the soil.

The town is built on marshland.

On top, a layer of wet, soft soil.

And beneath that, gravel.

When bombs hit...

Many bounced off the gravel and turned nose up.

So the acetone dripped the wrong way,

leaving only fumes

to slowly eat away the celluloid.

On the surface,

life went on as usual.

But underground,

the firing pin remained cocked...

[explosion]

[narrator] ...and easily triggered.

[Bernd] When someone submits a building application,

Brandenburg’s bomb disposal team

assigns a company that scans the area for explosive weapons.

[narrator] At today’s site

A truck loaded with hay bales is standing by;

used to dampen the shockwave if a bomb has to be blown up.

The foreman says there’s still half a meter to go.

They still don’t know if it’s a bomb.

But they’ve checked aerial reconnaissance photos

taken here during the war.

Tiny craters give clues

to where time-delay bombs might still be today.

Next step: the company sends out a survey crew.

They sink plastic pipes five meters into the ground,

and drop in a magnetic probe.

Metal things that can be found in the soil

emit magnetic fields.

The probe measures this magnetic field,

which is then printed out as a graph.

[narrator] In this case,

the probes show there’s something big and metal

about five meters down.

If we’re dealing with a time-delay fuse,

every measure will be taken immediately

to ensure that the whole area is locked off

and that the bomb is disabled the same day.

If defusing it is not possible, we detonate the bomb.

[narrator] Live time-delay bombs

are almost always nose up.

They expose the tail to get at the fuse.

[Bernd] The bomb is stabilized by chains and ropes

so that there is no movement at all.

The key thing

is to concentrate on groping one’s way

to the tail of the bomb without moving it.

[narrator] To defuse it, they set up

a remote-controlled high-pressure water jet.

Inside the jet,

grains of sand cut through the thread

that joins the fuse to the bomb.

The bomb is dead...

when the fuse is pulled out.

Then it’s safe to move the bomb

to the Brandenburg bomb squad’s depot,

where it is carefully stacked with other munitions...

-and detonated. [explosion]

It’s really staggering to think

that we’ll be dealing with this deadly toxic Waste

for maybe the next 50 years here in Oranienburg.

[narrator] Over the years,

large areas of the town have been swept clean of bombs,

but everyone knows

hundreds still remain... Underfoot,

waiting to explode.

Coming up on "How Tech Works".

When an air pump is not an option...

Gum balls just might be the answer!

We're pumping up the Mars land rover's new set of wheels!

And Take your best shot!

Boxer jocks let you release your inner beast

without all those annoying bruises and black eyes!

Welcome back to "How Tech Works".

I’m Dr. Basil. This next story,

takes a look at a very different set

of inventive minds...

Their task?

To use wire mesh and ping pong balls

in the construction of the next generation

of land rovers.

But this vehicle isn’t set to 'rove' just any land.

It’s heading to mars.

Just wait 'til you see what they came up with!

[upbeat music]

[narrator] Climbing a new frontier...

[Basil] Oh yeah!

[narrator] These wheels are getting a grip

on what it really might ‘feel’ like on the moon or mars..

We have plains, hills, rock falls, a mesa,

we even have a large crater...

[narrator] It’s a space-junkie’s dream test site.

The 'Mars Yard' at the Canadian Space Agency.

Today, mechanical engineers from McGill University

are putting prototype lunar rover tires to the test.

What I can tell you

is that the iRings prototype that you see today,

is a unique concept that was developed in Canada.

[narrator] Peter Radzieszweski is leading the charge.

He and his McGill pit crew

have been tasked with developing wheels

that can move the 7,000,000 pound Juno rover

on another planet.

[man] Canadarm II will be relocated back to the Z-I...

[Peter] That could become as iconic

as say the Canadarms on the space shuttle,

or the robotic systems on the space station.

[man] This is exciting! This is like... Geez!

They wanted us to look at traction...

heel traction, particularly.

[narrator] Undergrad teams started to roll around ideas.

Uh, one of our undergraduate teams,

two and a half years ago,

basically came up with this design, this wheel design.

When you lift it and drop it,

[clanking sound]

it bounces around;

similar to what you’d have with a pneumatic tire.

That’s interesting,

but in a vehicle that’s going on the moon,

it hits a rock,

it will basically bounce off that rock.

[narrator] A flash of inspiration.

This simple tumbling mill got heads spinning.

And this is where we came to that idea of a mill

having particulates in it,

filling that, uh, in a tire

and, uh, basically seeing what happens.

And this is what happens in this particular case

So... it absorbs that impact energy,

so, uh, potentially this wheel here

would allow a lunar rover

uh, to travel faster, absorb impacts more easily.

[narrator] Inside,

small plastic balls the size of marbles.

Thousands of them.

Next, Peter looked to his son’s playroom

for inspiration.

All the signs said, you know, I can make this.

So, I went home,

took my son’s bean bag

and we, I basically machined two or, uh, two discs

that basically formed the rim of the wheel

and I sandwiched the bean bag between the two discs

and that was the first mock up.

[narrator] It worked... but needed refinement,

and some inspiration from the armor

of the middle ages.

It’s basically composed of three elements.

There’s the central rim which is rigid.

There’s the tire part which is actually chainmail,

it’s a fabric,

and then what’s, what's inside is particulate.

Which is, uh, in this case plastic balls.

[narrator] They created the tire small enough

to fit on this remote control car.

Then, like kids, they let it rip.

And even gave the small scale rover a run at the big yard.

Success!

Now, size it up.

Sixty one centimeters

put a shiny red rim on it

and enough weight to burn some serious metal.

Nervous yes and no.

Uh, we’ve done our own tests,

we’re very confident with the results that we’ve obtained,

uh, quite successful,

uh, now it’s very much to give it to the CSA

and basically say, "Okay, well, do your best to break it."

So, We did try it sideways.

Yes, we tried it forward, backwards.

[narrator] Erick Dupuis heads up robotics for the CSA.

With a close eye and hands on the controls,

he scrutinizes the performance.

[man] It's very good at absorbing the shocks

and making sure that you don’t bounce around.

Uh, it is very good at conforming to the terrain.

The disadvantage is it also takes more energy to drive.

[narrator] Still, these tires easily navigate

the obstacles here.

Over walls, down hills and into craters..

Several other space organizations

have recognized the importance of having flexible wheels

and of all the models that I've seen,

this one with the chainmail and particle filling,

the iRings concept is truly unique.

I'm impressed!

Being able to see it on this scale is like... great!

[narrator] So have a good look at these tires here.

Soon you might see them with a familiar logo...

in a galaxy far, far away.

And last, but by no means least.

You all know the movie Toy Story, right?

Woody and Buzz Lightyear and the rest of the gang?

well one of the fascinating things about that movie

is the notion of toys actually coming to life.

The inventor in this next story couldn't agree more.

He just decided to take it one step further.

Take a look.

[upbeat music]

[narrator] Take a good look at these characters.

Questionable form... way past their prime.

Okay, gentlemen. Let's have a good, clean fight.

[narrator] Yet, determined to bare-knuckle it anyway.

[engines rumbling]

[narrator] Today,

heads will roll, but no blood will spill.

This is a cage match

for the not-so rough and tumble.

Inventor Mark Wild calls them "Boxer Jocks".

A lot of wives and husbands

like to duke it out amongst themselves.

[narrator] Knocking your opponent’s block off

is exactly what this fight is all about.

[Mark] It gives you the thrill

of participating in a boxing match

and of course, you will not get hurt.

[narrator] Every neck-breaking blow

earns the striker a point.

When you do get hit,

you feel a slight nudge from the other person's glove

and the gloves will give you a slight cushioning effect

where it's not too shock-intensive

on your machine.

The arms are controlled by pneumatic cylinders

Basically the arm motion is like this... semi-automatic.

Push the button, the arm comes up

and the arm retracts when you release the button.

[narrator] Three minute rounds provide ample opportunity.

Upon getting hit by the machine

we have an inside scoreboard that indexes the scoreboard up

and the lightbar that signifies that you have been hit.

[narrator] But winning takes moves like Lennox Lewis.

[Mark] You're constantly moving.

The better riders move forward and backward

and are always pivoting around.

The less coordinated riders

go static and then they just try to punch out each other.

The base is driven by a hydraulic system

that controls the mobility of the machines

through two joystick controls.

The person controls the pivoting action of the machines

to put your robot in the strategic position

where you can knock the opposing robot's head back.

[fighting sounds]

[narrator] Remind you of these guys?

Boxer Jocks

are a life-sized version

of the rock-’em, sock-’em robots.

[narrator] Precisely the goal.

Mark Wilde takes making his boxing bots pretty seriously.

And for good reason.

Getting them fight-ready

has been a different type of battle.

Our first pre-production prototype

started off with electric drive vehicles

that were somewhat larger than the boxer jock units now,

they were some eight feet tall,

fifteen-hundred pounds but we found them too unwieldy.

So that is why we went

to the gasoline internal combustion engine

which would give us longevity in terms of ride cycle,

and we carefully honed the design down

to make it more reliable and more flexible.

It is something that is,

uh, I have been working on for the past 15 years

and right now starting to mass market the machines.

[narrator] His biggest challenge?

Ensuring these guys can take the heat.

[electronic music]

[Mark] They do take a lot of punishment

in the atmosphere of the game cycle

and therefore we have to make a durable product

that is long lasting.

[narrator] Today, they're performing like champs.

Good thing.

Because after this test match

they’re headed to an amusement park,

where the hits won’t stop.

Building a set of machines for a customer

will take approximately three to four weeks

if all the parts are in inventory.

[narrator] Which means you can settle a grudge of your own

pretty quickly.

It's a game, it's a game. Yes.

The machine takes all the punishment

and it is just basically an enhancement

of the ego for the winner.

[electronic music]

[making robot noises]

Ooh, you caught me robot dancing there. [chuckles]

That’s all the time we’ve got for today.

Thank you very much for watching How Tech Works,

until next time, I’m Dr. Basil Singer. Bye-bye.

[ending music]