Original subtitles

[narrator] On this episode of How Tech Works,

this man is designing a high-speed rocket plane,

that can travel to the other side of the planet,

in a matter of a few hours.

[intro music]

Hello and welcome to How Tech Works.

My name is Dr. Basil Singer.

And you're in for one high-speed,

high stakes, high adrenalin show.

[narrator] We’ll take to the skies,

in a world record breaking paper airplane.

But first right now,

a lot of brains across the UK

are focused on making a dream plane into reality.

It’s a passenger plane called the A2.

And the engineers behind it

are saying that aviation hasn’t been this exciting,

since the Concord.

I think it’s something to do with the aircraft’s speed.

Over 3000 miles an hour.

[man] Three, two, one, now.

[narrator] It’s a powerful rocket with a practical purpose.

In less than 15 years,

it might be powering the plane for your family holiday.

This is to go say from Brussels to Sydney.

And it can do that is just over four and a half hours.

[narrator] The plane is called the A2.

[James] It’s going to look like a conventional airliner,

but a bit longer and sleeker.

With smaller wings, and it’s going to have 4 engines.

[narrator] And it'll fly almost 3X the speed of the Concord.

If you imagine the Concord could fly at Mach2.

So it could take you from London to New York very, very quickly.

This is a stage beyond Concord so we can go Mach5.

[narrator] That’s five times the speed of sound.

3700 miles an hour.

James Macfarlane’s job is to build the engines.

It’s called an air breathing rocket engine.

[narrator] It’s simpler and lighter,

than rockets built for space travel.

Unlike the space shuttle, it doesn't need to take its own,

oxygen with it because it’s still operating,

just inside the atmosphere.

[narrator] And he’s testing the engine here,

at Westcott's testing field near Oxford.

So what testing are we doing today?

[narrator] This former military base,

has been home to most of Britain’s rocket tests,

the past half a century.

Malcolm Paul has had a hand in most of them.

[Malcolm] Oh I’ve been here for 48 years.

[narrator] He’s tested rocket engines for cars,

planes and satellites.

I retired from here about 10 years ago,

and I come in to do odd jobs for interesting guys like this.

[narrator] And he’s here today,

because he believes this project is ambitious, but possible.

Technically yes, it’s a goer. Yeah.

[narrator] Today they’re firing a scaled down,

version of the rocket.

[James] The actual engine on the aircraft,

is about 16 times bigger, in terms of the nozzle diameter,

and the thrust is about 200-250 times higher than this engine.

[narrator] And the toughest part of the test,

is simulating air coming into the intake at Mach5.

At that speed air will heat up as it’s forced into the engine.

They’re adding pure oxygen to the fuel mix.

The reason we do that is to actually simulate,

the effect of air being hot.

[narrator] That makes the rocket burn more aggressively.

Temperature is the most crucial factor,

in every stage of the engine.

The air comes in down this pipe here.

Through a valve. And in through this duct. Into the engine.

And then we’ve got hydrogen coming down,

this through a flow meter. And it comes in through here.

Into the pre-combustor.

[narrator] Most engines want hot air for combustion.

But in this case the air is too hot.

So they use something called a pre-cooler.

[James] The pre-cooler is a network

of very, very fine tubes.

And through the tubes are flowing helium gas,

and the air is flowing past the tubes,

so as it comes in very hot the air cools down,

because it heats the tubes up.

This great big silver bit here is the injector,

where the propellants are sent through very small,

a series of very small holes so that they mix,

evenly in the combustion chamber.

[narrator] That’s another stage,

where James would like to control the temperature.

When you burn air with hydrogen in a rocket engine,

it burns very, very hot.

And above a certain temperature,

not just the oxygen in the air burns,

but the nitrogen in the air burns as well.

A chemical reaction occurs which makes Nitric Oxide.

[narrator] And Nitric Oxide is one of the key greenhouse gases.

So if we can tailor the temperature of combustion,

to make sure it doesn’t ever get high enough,

to burn the nitrogen,

then we can actually reduce the emissions of the engine,

to nearly zero.

[narrator] High speed travel to the other side of the planet,

with almost zero emissions might seem like science fiction.

But James believes it’s not that far away.

We could be talking about one of these flying by 2025.

[narrator] But there’s a lot of testing to do in the meantime.

Okay Andrew you can go outside and raise the flag.

[narrator] With the dangerous testing going on at Westcott,

they need a simple system,

to warn their neighbors what they’re up to.

Flying a red flag means you have explosives,

or rocket fuel on site.

A yellow flag means something is about to go boom!

-You ready Malcolm? -Yep.

Starting a count from ten. Starting now.

Ten, Nine, Eight. Seven, Six,

Five, Four, Three, Two, One.

Now! [loud explosion]

[narrator] It’s a big blast, but really it’s just a small step.

Today is really exciting but it’s just one test,

in a whole series of many tests.

So there’ll be another test tomorrow,

another test next week.

I think we’re about 10 years from a flying aircraft.

From a genuine Brussels to Sydney in 4½ hour's ticket.

Wow! Small steps towards a very large step in air travel!

And speaking of steps,

walking on two legs is something we humans take for granted.

Most of the time.

But for a robot it’s really quite difficult.

In fact, right now all over the world,

robo-geeks are focusing their energies,

on helping robots walk in a straight line.

Without ever losing their balance.

At the university of Michigan they have a different approach:

They’re making great strides by walking in circles.

[narrator] At the university of Michigan.

Okay guys, let’s get the robot calibrated.

- Can you measure it? - [Prof. Jessy] Yes.

[narrator] Professor Jessy Grizzle, and his PHD students,

Hae Won Pak and Kourshil Sreeneth,

want to make robots walk like people.

So they’ve been trying to trip up a robot called Mabel.

Mabel is M-A-B-E-L.

Michigan, Anthropomorphic, Biped, with Electric, Legs.

That’s MABEL.

[narrator] First they’re making sure,

Mabel’s legs are straight and level.

- You guys ready? - Yes, switching on power now.

-[Jessy] Power on. -[Kourshil] Enabling the motors.

[Kourshil] Posing the robot.

[narrator] Precision is essential.

Sensors on the robot’s body,

have to tell it the starting position of every part.

Okay, well let's, let's continue.

Okay, launch MABEL.

I would like a robot that could serve as a rescue robot.

That could go into a building that is with uncertain ground,

be able to walk and do things like a human.

It should be able to run if necessary.

If it's in a hurry.

[narrator] Mabel doesn't have cameras.

So she’s got to blindly correct herself with every step.

Sensors detect movement and feed data

into a computer which adjusts the gait

to keep the robot upright.

It’s supported by a boom.

Because the researchers are focused on up and down motion,

not side to side.

So you notice that the feet are terminated in points.

One of the things we are really trying to prove

is that we can design gaits that are so stable

that the robot can be walking like a ballerina,

as if it’s up on her tip toes en point.

[narrator] And they made Mabel powerful.

Because they want a robot that’ll eventually run fast.

In experiments,

the researchers have been pushing her to the limit.

Hop.

until she flops.

[Jessy] It’s at that failure point

that we really will learn something new.

We will have predicted from our mathematical algorithms

approximately where that failure point should happen,

but those are points where either the leg is slipping,

or our model of friction is not perfect.

[narrator] In one of their tests they lay out a circle of steps

made from plywood boards, they try and trip her.

And that last step is a tricky one for a blind robot.

Today they want to make the drop even higher,

and go for a record. Time for a warm up.

We’re going to deliberately trip the robot.

We have these obstacles here they're just made of plywood.

They're cut so they stack nicely.

I’m just going to toss them on in some sort of random location.

She ate that one up.

I need some more boards, guys.

[laughs]

Come on girl! You're supposed to fall!

[Jessy] Oh!

[narrator] After a bit of tinkering,

they manage to get her walking again.

And now it’s time to go for that record-breaking step-down test.

The height will be upped gradually.

Now four inches, or about ten centimeters.

[Jessy] Okay Mabel is coming up the platform,

we're approaching the four inch drop off here,

we’ll see how she responds to this plot.

Recovered quite nicely.

[narrator] Now they’ve got a big decision.

Should they go for the record,

and risk breaking a robot worth over 50 thousand pounds?

They add the final level.

Which is five inches or about twelve centimeters.

Okay so this is for the record

we’ve never tried this one before.

Wow! Yes! [laughs]

[applause]

We clearly have some crazy hardware issues going on here,

but despite all that, that was amazing!

After all the problems we’ve had today

this was a very nice way to end.

[narrator] Jessy and his team has plans

for an advanced robot that’ll walk and run without a boom.

But up next, feet with running shoes built by students,

for a robot that was made for walking.

Don’t go too far. We’ll be right back

with more How Tech Works.

[intro music]

Welcome back to How Tech Works. I’m Basil Singer.

Now the gadget in this next story

is the result of one man’s determination

to capture messages left behind

by allied troops of The First World War.

You see it’s one thing to simply photograph

these incredible images.

But quite another to get all of the equipment

to the bottom of the caves

where the soldiers were hiding for their lives.

Take a look.

[narrator] In his garage in London Ontario,

Zenon Andrusyszyn is building something for the history books.

I call this Le Gizmo.

[narrator] Yes it looks like a guillotine

but it’s not for beheadings.

It’s for photographs.

The whole reason why I built this unit, for this camera.

[narrator] Zenon and Le Gizmo are going to a cave in France

to capture something few people have ever seen.

Its significant because a lot of our world war one soldiers

were housed in it prior to going into battle for Vimmy Ridge.

In the caves itself, there are a lot of carvings

that were done by the soldiers.

And their names are written on the walls.

[narrator] That was in 1917.

And almost a century has passed

since anxious young men waited for their marching order.

Leaving their mark in the nearby cave.

Zenon wants to photograph these moments in time.

Now usually he’d use a camera boom

to move his camera up and down the walls,

but he can't find one that fits the cave entrance.

To get it down the stairs we needed to make sure that

the whole unit was able to be taken apart

and put together quite easily in the dark as well.

So it had to be very simple, it had to be very effective.

[narrator] To capture as many of the images as they can,

Zenon and his friend Graham Mould

need a hassle-free boom.

We didn't look at batteries

because we did not want to run into any kind of a problem

with the batteries or any else like that motorized units.

So it had to be totally manual.

[Graham] Okay ready?

[narrator] It’s got to be portable and narrow,

but also stable enough to extend up high.

Let's do it. Alright let's see how it goes.

Alright, nice and smooth.

-Nice smooth action. -[Graham] Oh yeah really good.

-[Graham] There. -That's the full extension.

[narrator] It might seem like a lot of work

for a few photographs, but there are a lot of carvings,

in a lot of odd places.

In order for a camera to take the appropriate sequences

we use these lasers to line up where the initial wall begins

and the overlap for photographs.

So in other words this is going to be the area

where the photographs will not overlap

and the top 3rd, bottom 3rd, left and right will overlap.

[narrator] Le Gizmo is ready to capture history.

So it’s off to France.

[Jessy] When we first went to the cave,

it's on the ground, it's covered with what they call wiggly tin,

which is like corrugated iron, you'd walk right by it.

You open it up and then you go down this long steep stairwell

that is made of bricks and it is only about maybe 2 feet wide

and you walk down and you see all this garbage on the bottom,

because the farmer used it as a refuge pile.

and then you crawl underneath this buttress

that's hanging off the ceiling

and then you get on the other side of that and it opens up

and it's about 13 feet high

and it is about the size of two football fields, side by side.

[narrator] Before they set-up the Gizmo,

Graham explores the cave.

I am by myself and it is dark and I am using my miner’s light.

And it's this little heart that was carved by this soldier.

He's got his sweetheart's and his initials on it.

And above it there is a spike that was in the wall

which I assume was for the bunk beds.

and what's happened over the years,

is that the spike has rusted,

and it has bled rust right through the center of the heart.

And it's cracked, it looks like the heart is broken.

And you can’t help but be affected by it.

Like you think okay, this guy who's in that environment

for that length of time thinking about his sweetheart still.

Sorry.

[narrator] It’s this emotion and connection to the soldiers

that Zenon hopes to capture.

And in this cave near Vimmy Ridge,

his home-made device is making that possible.

[Zenon] It’s a matter of remembering

that they are the ones that actually forged

Canada’s identity on the international scene

through this particular battle.

[somber music]

[narrator] Zenon still has lots of work ahead of him,

but one day he hopes he’ll be able to share the story

of these soldiers with all Canadians.

[Zenon] What we’re hoping to do

is put all the information together and have an archive,

then what we’re going to do is choose 30

for travelling across Canada to exhibit.

It’s important and it’s significant.

It has to be remembered.

It has to be brought to the Canadian people.

and I think that if we didn’t do it,

it would be, it would be an injustice.

Earlier we kicked off the show

with a story about a man’s plan to build an airplane

that will break all sorts of speed and distance records.

Well now we move from rocket planes to paper planes,

and we’re still looking to break some records.

Now I admit it’s not easy to throw something light,

and make it travel very far,

but if you’ve got the right design,

and you call yourself ‘The Paper airplane Guy’,

maybe you’ve got a shot.

[narrator] You are witnessing history.

Guinness World Distance Record for paper airplane throw,

which is 226 feet and 10 inches, 69.338 meters.

Almost the length of a football field!

Breaking a record that stood for nine years

is the end of an epic journey for one very passionate,

and aptly named, hobbyist.

I’m John Collins. I am the Paper airplane Guy.

[energetic music]

[narrator] And because he’s so addicted to flying them,

Paper airplane Guy is going to try

and break that record today.

What we’re going to do, we're going to take this plane

back to McClelland and we’re going to try and recreate

breaking the record for you guys!

[narrator] John’s passion with fancy fliers

started at a young age,

but became really serious through Origami.

You don’t really need a plane with a swan’s head stuck to it.

Right? But if you could and get it to fly. That’s not bad.

[narrator] John is a true showman.

With a genuine love for science.

The more I learned about the physics,

you know the more Maths and Science you take in school.

The more interesting it became to me.

How things fly? Why things fly? It’s endlessly fascinating.

[narrator] And he sees paper airplanes in everything.

This is a really fun plane

because nobody ever thinks it flies,

it’s the tube and it’s made to spin as it flies,

it’s not something you want an ordinary paper airplane to do.

It gets directional stability by how fast it’s spinning,

the faster it spins the straighter it flies,

a little bit like a bicycle wheel.

[narrator] Like a magician,

he can keep things in the air

with nothing more than slight of hand.

It’s so light weight, I can keep it aloft

just by generating a wave of air with my hands.

[narrator] John literally juggles his aircraft

by controlling how the air travels over a wing.

Now this one does something most paper airplanes don’t do.

Which is circle back.

Now it does that because the wings are drooping

as they leave the body of the plane.

[narrator] But knowledge alone can’t beat the distance record

of 207 feet set in 2003. John needed to recruit some muscle.

My name is Joe Ayoob and I played quarterback

at the University of California Berkeley.

[John] Until now, the world record holder

has been using a plane that’s really like a ballistic dart.

They throw it at about a 45 degree angle

and they just put Newton in the driver seat.

That wore my arm out very quickly.

I think the first day I was out there

I had a total of ten throws before I was done.

[narrator] And that’s when John had a stroke of genius.

Simply design a plane to do what it was meant to do.

[John] It just literally does something no other

distance world record holder does.

It flies.

[narrator] To do that,

John’s first step was to redesign the wings.

They have to fly pretty fast...

to keep going and bigger wings like this...

can fly a lot slower to do the same thing.

[narrator] In the end, the winning design

has only got eight simple folds.

I’m not going to show you the whole plane.

[narrator] Throwing something 100X lighter than a football

Joe had to change his technique.

A lot of the fundamentals are the same.

The big difference is instead of having your elbow up,

at about a 90 degree angle, I drop my elbow down.

[narrator] Constant on the fly adjustments

were also key to sustained flight.

Let's throw this one right down the pipeline.

A little harder at the same angle,

- It doesn’t want to stay up. -Ok so a little more left rudder

to we get curving on the end so I can fix that.

Once you master those control surfaces,

you can really figure out whether you have a good design.

[narrator] And that’s exactly what they had in Sacramento

on February 22, on their fourth declared launch.

[Joe] When I threw it, it just took off.

[John] And once it started its downhill run

at the angle it was going I knew we had it.

[Joe] Get up there! Get up!

[screaming]

[Joe] It was just a great feeling,

kind of a validation of those 18 months

that we put in to finally break the record.

[John] My wife she has suffered through this thing for years now

that’s why the plane is named after her.

It’s called the Suzanne.

[narrator] Unfortunately for Suzanne,

John isn’t about to retire his airplanes anytime soon.

[laughing and clapping]

With an unlimited ceiling,

we don’t really know how far that throw could go.

There is plenty of distance left in this plane

There you go.

[narrator] To prove their point, John and Joe attempt

to break their newly set record, for us!

An on their 26th unofficial attempt. It happens.

[laughs]

[John] That’s almost 30 feet past the mark,

past the old world record of 207.

Not a bad job.

Thanks very much for watching How Tech Works .

I’m Basil Singer. I'll see you next time.

[ending music]