Why not 3 teams? I think the dynamics would be much more exciting. Harder to manage? Perhaps the extra work would make a better show. Besides, if you combine that idea with giving the teams an extra day, there will be more camaraderie, more witty interactions, and a higher quality of competition.

-- Greg Popove (gregp@telusplanet.net), November 19, 2000

Answers

How about 3 teames? I think it would be much better, and the the show would be a much higher quality.

-- Geoffrey Chales Upson (gupson@snet.net), November 24, 2000.

I think the general idea that I got was that everyone on the teams were already good buddies, and from rjnerd (dp) jeff or whatever his name is, the teams meet up with their specialists the night before, but cannot ask them what they do for a living.

Also its actually meant to be an educational show, and the competition is more of one between friends than enemies, so I would rather see more shows with good team work and a great amount of "bodgering" (and teaching new words ;-) ) to get something working than bitter competition. The Fuel misers episode (the one where they were allowed a cup of gas) showed a great level of "friendly" competition. (And I still cant get over the fact they did 7 more laps after emptying their tank).

-- Chris Barker (chrisb@zarquon-industries.com), November 25, 2000.

rjnerd is an old MIT joke - Random J. Nerd, I use it when speaking for the team... dp is my normal login/email address. (using two initials was the custom, when I got my first internet address 27 years ago). I use jeff on some of the junkyard/scrapheap forums, as thats what it says on my coveralls.

Anyhow, yes, its very much the friendly competition. In fact, in one of the earlier years, on test day, one of the teams machines had a problem. The other team pitched in to help, and when it came time to test, lost to the people whose machine they helped fix. When we get a chance to see the other teams machine, if we notice anything that looks like it was going to be a problem, we told them about it.

The brothers in arms are "legendary" for preparing the other team for test day by taking them out for "a curry and a couple of pints" the night before. Its a wonderfull experience, but as officers in her majestey's army, and irish to boot, they can consume industrial quantities of both. Us poor yanks could have put ourselves at a severe disadvantage had we tried to match them pint for pint.

I begin to understand how two teams (with experts, and consultants) and an equal number of production crew could run up a 1,000 pound bar tab in one night. (last year, we had to buy our own beer)

In our case, all members of the teams we built against, left with a nerds T shirt. And there was always a battle over who got to buy the next round.

As to three teams, the show is hard enough to manage as it is. But more importantly, with the 50 (44 in USA) minutes of air time, its impossible to show more than a tiny taste of whats going on. Trying to show what 3 teams are up to, and you wouldn't have time to teach anything.

I have seen our episodes, and they had to be very ruthless with what they could include, there just wasn't time. There are whole parts of our machines, which there wasn't time to include us talking about. We are building complex machines, with lots of interesting things to describe. When I wrote up one of the builds, it ran 35 pages. (plus pictures, and a glossary). And thats only what we did, I didn't include any comments on the other teams machine. I am sure that others writeups could run comparable length.

-dp-

Watch us build a submarine December 6.

http://www.the-nerds.org/

-- Jeff - The NERDS (dp@the-nerds.org), November 25, 2000.

Three teams would make for great "competition", this would actually remove some of the concerns about everyone finishing, or everything working. If one team couldn't hack it so be it. You would still have a contest.

Jay

-- Jay McKinney (justjay@neo.rr.com), November 28, 2000.

i think there should be four teams. before you go on with your assigned project, you have to build a machine to catch the other team, then you do still end up with two teams. i also think one of the project should be use the stuff in the junk yard, to land the team on the moon, (not to land on the moon and back, because the return part maybe too hard to do)...just an idea, by the way, i also enjoy the 10 hours of shows.

Wussy moped shocks rule !!!!!

-- Terry A. Li (lit@mail.vmi.edu), December 04, 2000.

Build a space rocket out of junkyard parts? It's been done: 1979 TV movie Salvage, starring Andy Griffith. http://us.imdb.com/Title?0079847

Also a TV series: http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/9782/salvage1.html

-- Derek Jensen (djensen@kconline.com), December 14, 2000.

3 teams would be gay and thats not a challenge idea

-- justin kiefer (hockey_kid_22@yahoo.com), April 05, 2001.

Um, guys? Justin says three teams is gay. (And here I thought "three" was just an odd number.) Better back off before he FLAMES us.

-- Chip Haynes (ehaynes@co.pinellas.co.us), April 06, 2001.

3 teams is a great Idea, but giving them an extra day would be too much! (unless their work is REALLY much harder)

-- Ilia Denotkine (iliaden@hotmail.com), January 07, 2002.