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Junkyard Wars Tour
ArtEnvironment writes "Junkyard Wars coming to a... MALL near you!?
Here's your chance to experience Junkyard Wars firsthand, or at least a glorified pinewood, er I mean JUNK derby! You can build unique gravity-racers and compete on a 'special effects-filled', mini race track. In addition, you can watch clips from the show and possibly even win prizes, yay!"
This sounds like a lot of fun. Too bad there's only 9 stops on the tour...
Tour Schedule/Hours:
Fridays: 2 p.m. -- 8 p.m.
Saturdays: Noon -- 8 p.m.
Sundays: Noon -- 5 p.m.
April 25-27, 2003: Washington, DC -- Montgomery Mall
May 2-4, 2003: Atlanta, GA -- Perimeter Mall
May 9-11, 2003: Philadelphia, PA -- King of Prussia
May 16-18, 2003: New York, NY -- Roosevelt Field
May 23-25, 2003: Boston, MA -- South Shore Plaza
May 30-June 1, 2003: Chicago, IL -- Woodfield Mall
June 6-8, 2003: Minneapolis, MN -- Mall of America
June 13-15, 2003: Dallas, TX -- The Parks at Arlington
June 20-22, 2003: Los Angeles, CA -- Westfield Shoppingtown, Santa Anita
Thanks for the heads up. It was at my local mall last weekend. I saw it as they were packing it up. There were bins of toy wagon wheels, and zip ties, and a long, bumpy, twisting, downhill track for three vehicles, as if Salvadore Dali designed outdoor play equipment.
There is a "making-of" episode where they show what is actually involved in creating a single show.
If you have not see it then read this page:
How 'Junkyard Wars' Works: Behind The Scenes
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
Geez, for the last time. _it ain't about building stuff from junk_ it's about science (for want of a better word) education disguised as something that people will actually watch. The original, Scrapheap Challenge, here in the UK (and ain't that name change a bit of cultural giveaway), had no real pretence otherwise.
On a related note, one of the UK presenters (of Scrapheap Challenge), Robert Llewellyn (Kryton from Red Dwarf FWIW) has another great show called "Hollywood Science" where he and a scientist mate pick three films pick a bit of science out of the film and then test to see if it actually works. They then rate the science based on these results from 0-10 and pick a winner for that episode. It's actually pretty cool and some of the stuff they have tested has been very interesting, from explosions in water (some deniro film) to infrared cameras (the Pierce Brosnen remake of the newman film) to the egg eating in "Cool Hand Luke". http://www.open2.net/science/hollywood_science/
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
... it was very timely, JunkYard wars came to a mall near me a month ago.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
I forget quite where, but I read an interview with one of the producers who said they also remove stuff from the yard that would make the challenge too easy.
Despite seeding the yard, if you watch the show you'll notice the teams still often face the dilemma of being unable to find the stuff they need/want which sometimes results in the failure of their machines.
It was a lot of fun, but we didn't win (2nd place). Here's how it goes:
Stand in line, then stand in line some more. Fill out a sheet where you list your car's name ("Thundermobile", courtesy of my 3 year old) and the team members (myself, my 5 year old daughter and my 3 year old son). Sign a waiver saying that if you die it's your problem and if you're on TV then you get no money.
Finally it's build time. 3 teams get 10 minutes to assemble their race cars. First, pick a frame from about 1 dozen or so shells and then head to your workbench. Pick 4 wheels (sizes are large, medium, small). Attach wheels (don't forget cotter pins). At this point you have a car to race. You're provided with other items to attach...basically a bin of junk that serves only to dress up the car but can add weight. You also get flashlights and batteries. I was going to pile on the batteries for weight but was told that too much weight will sometimes make the car get stuck on the track. Everything has to be secured with either colored electrical tape or zip ties. After a final check the cars are loaded on the "junkivator" and lifted to the start of the course. Teams are put on stage and the race is run. Winning times are around 5 seconds. The winner gets a team picture with the host and the losers go off to an old auto bench seat. For our effort each of us got a JYW bag containing promotional flyers, radio shack coupons (they're sponsoring the tour), a picture frame magnet, and a JYW mini maglite in a JYW-branded plastic case. The winners get the same plus a t-shirt.
It was fun though not really a challenging build (remember, they have to crank through as many teams as they can which is why the time is limited). A great thing for a family to do together. There's a lot of hype - the host is very energetic (he's the same guy on the tour commercial) and everyone is very nice. The kids liked being on the TV screens around the display and liked the race. My son has been talking about doing it again. All it all it was worthwhile and if they have a tour next year we'll do it again.
For another, more important thing, they also don't have Cathy Rogers anymore. She's jumped ship and moved to Full Metal Challenge. Sadly, she represented the last bastion of Britishisms on the show--nevermore will we hear the verb, to bodge.
~Idarubicin
The mall tour sounds more like Operation Junkyard, the kids version of Junkyard Wars as part of the Discovery Kids shows on NBC. Although all the parts are nicer rather than just being junk, the show has kids participating rather than adults. It's a little different format but still a set time period (6 hours) to build something and then a competition. Instead of experts they have engineers they can consult with for a very short time at the beginning. My kids like the show a lot along with regular Junkyard Wars. It's not bad. More info is available here.
OT rant: Now for a really lame kids version of a show (since the adult show is lame as well) there is the Discovery Kids show Endurance, a kid version of Survivor. Now that bores my kids to no end. It makes me proud to see them go build stuff instead of watching it when it comes on after Operation Junkyard.
I was there on their first weekend, a few miles from Discovery Channel HQ (TLC's overlord). The Missle Masters (the Navy team from this season; they live about 200 miles away) were there to say "hi" and helped a few people with their models.
It was about as much fun as you would expect when you realize that they want to get a few hundred people to build the models and they don't allow arc welding. Lots of flat screen TV's, and the mall's Radio Shack manager came down with a bunch of ZipZaps (the small RC cars) to play with (and sell); my 4 year-old had much fun (and the ZipZap has survived 2 weeks (3 sets of batteries) of use).
I kept asking for Kathy Rogers. I figured one of the TV hosts would show up for the first stop of the tour. Maybe on the last...
If you have the fastest car at the end of the tour you'll get to be on the show. The fastest run at the first weekend was 4.4 seconds.