Some new ideas(?)

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Since the show is devoted to demonstrating science and engineering principles in an entertaining way, here are a few challenges which should do the trick:

1. Build an orniothopter (flapping wing flying machine)-demonstrates principles of flight and the importance of power/weight ratios.

2. Build a computer (prefferably something like a Babbage machine)that can do simple calculations-demonstrates how logical operations are performed in an electrical or mechanical device.

3. Build a vaccum pump, capable of evacuating a large container. The payoff could be a replay of an experiment performed in (I think) the 1700's, where two hemispheres were sealed together by evacuating the air between them, and several teams of horses could not pull the hemispheres apart. Demonstrates pressure differentials

4. Build a clock, with a mechanical escarpment action. The most accurate clock wins. While not as exciting as demolishing buildings, escarpment mechanisms were a big part of accurate mechanisms since about 1500.

I submit these ideas to put a different spin on some of the threads, which are going for spectacular special effects, as opposed to fun education. (I love special effects, by the way, and can't wait for "Pyrotechnic Wars")

Enjoy

-- Arthur Majoor (a_majoor@hotmail.com), December 26, 2000

Answers

SWEET IDEAS YOU HAVE!

-- Sean Durkin (seandurkin@msn.com), December 28, 2000.

I think that there should be a teenage junkyard war. Me and my freinds think that it would be neat to see some teens go at it.

-- michael (mr hisser@aol.com), December 29, 2000.

OK since Chernobyl has recently been shut down permanently, one could consider it a sort of scrapyard. How about sending in a couple of brave teams wearing anti-radioactivity suits to build something nuclear? They could build a nuclear powered boat, car, or a bomb.

-- Richard Manahan (rjcyclesk8@hotmail.com), December 30, 2000.

You should make robot battles, and anything goes inside an arena but the robots have to be remote controled.

YOU SHOULD ALLOW TEENS TO GO ON THE SHOW.

JUNK YARD WARS ROOLS.

-- kyle travis (detravis@hotmail.com), February 03, 2001.


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