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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!"
Yay -- one of my favorite shows is coming to a mall near me?! Where do I sign up? :)
A nice step forward for a television show -- involving viewers in person.
"How am I supposed to remember you, when you won't let me forget?" --Bare Naked Ladies
Or will they crush it at the end of the competition?
Seriously, this sounds like fun. Hey Junkyard Wars, over here in Reno, eh?!
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
My only question will Cathy Rogers be there??
I want to be the guy that gets to dump alll the "junk" into the mall and watch little teenie boopers try to figure out what a fulcrum is good for, instead of spending 19 bucks on a Justin Timberlake CD.
I watched a couple of episodes of junkyard wars and the word that comes to mind is lame. They couldn't build half the stuff they do if they only used junk. They have to seed the junk with things like working hydrolics, rocket motors, etc. Junkyard wars is as fake as the WWF. The A-Team was able to build cool stuff out of junk, but then that was fiction, and reality is boring.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
To heck with attacking other robots, I wanna build a robot that I can turn loose into 'The Gap' and a few other choice targets.
I notice they never get near Montana like so much else I'm interested in. We're a prime location guys! Almost every other hovel/trailer/dive/barn has their own junkyard in their front or back yard. Think about it!
Cathy: Today's competition is to knock a five year-old off a moveable staircase using no wheels and only gravity.
(Meanwhile, Silent Bob goes swinging by on a line thethered to the ceiling to knock the kid out.)
--Chag
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.
Do they expect you to go around smashing up cash registers,soldering all that shit together with coat hanger wire, and then use burning bras from Victoria's Secret for fuel?
Maybe they can just use some of the hot air from the jewelry stores instead of burning undergarments.
Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a day.
Light a man on fire and he will be warm the rest of his life.
One of the teams that competed earlier on in the series, The N.E.R.D.S., have their thoughts on this here.
The short answer is that yes, there are parts there that one wouldn't find in a normal junkyard due to safety concerns, and that yes, there are a higher number of "good junk" than the average real world junk heap, but honestly it's not like it's still not difficult as hell.
The "Junkyard" concept is only that, a concept designed to hold the show together, not an absolute reality that must be adheared to or else.
Of course they're going straight from Dallas to LA, with no stop in Albuquerque. Since the freeway between those two cities goes right through here, maybe I'll be able to at least watch the trucks go by, a single tear streaming down my cheek.
They still get to saw cars in half...
Now THAT'S entertainment!
The point of the show is to get the viewer to watch the little animated bits where they tell you how a certain piece of technology works (or might not work, in some cases). The rest is just hooks to get the viewer interested.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Yes it is my intention to do this exact same thing, remote controlled electric car with rocket boosters attached on the side : bring the car up to speed, then clutch the transmission to go free-wheeling then trigger the boosters at a distance. Yes fun. Volunteers? - I am aiming for physical engieneering and hope that this program will bring more people into the wonderfull world of physics
In Canada, we don't fancy things like socks
... 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.
Junkyard Wars will never be the same as the original Scrapheap Challenge. JW doesn't have Rob Llewellyn (sp?) for one thing.
Yeah. I stopped watching after the end-of-series special with the two remote-controlled cars - this was in the UK version. Basically they had a Toyota people-carrier and an old Peugeot estate fitted out with improvised RC gear, and they had to battle it out in a quarry. You got most points for a hit on the roof, and all the Toyota van people did was dangle chains off poles welded to the roof, which scraped along the roof of the (rather lower) Peugeot, doing no damage. Consequently, they won, even though the Peugeot smashed the absolute shit out of the van - at one point it rammed it just behind the right-hand (offside) rear wheel so hard it bent the windscreen pillars at the front, and popped one of the doors. I *really* wish I'd taped it.
Bah, they screwed me with cub cars.
Mine was so simply designed and executed, that it was altogether unimpressive, but it was by far the fastest one out there.
I cut the block into a wedge. One cut. The end. I gave it a coat of poly.
Now, to get to weight, I came up with an ingenious idea. I filled the wheels with plaster of paris. There was absolutely nothing in the rulebook about the wheels, other than that you must use the ones they provide, with the nails they provide. Ie; no ball bearings etc. Nothing about adding the weight in the wheels.
So I was at the perfect weight, and the center of gravity was basically at the axle point. Huge advantage over the cheesy hollow plastic wheels.
This simple scheme made my car twice as fast as anything else out there. I smoked my own troop hands down, and crushed the local rally. I went to the finals, and some ass-clown judge disqualified it.
Like I said there was absolutely nothing wrong with my design. He was just a dickweed who couldnt accept the fact that a plain brown doorstop could smoke his sons painstakingly hand-carved stupid looking piece of shit (his son got 2nd place eventually - wow surprise surprise)
I was basically disqualified for outsmarting everyone else. Creative thinking is apparently not the scouting way. Bah. The whole thing leaves a sour taste in my mouth to this day.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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.
I finally get to sit in the middle of crap and try to make something out of nothing & make it work like what I'm trying to imitate is supposed to work!
Oh... wait...
That's what I do for a living...
(Network Admin for a small (50 Users) company with $0 IT budget)
At least this time I'll get to do something fun!
(They're coming to my town!!! Yipee! Arlington, TX)
~ tmasman
Oh! And this one time, at band camp...
I can deal with the filming in a desert look.. incidentally the newer british shows are also filmed at the same spot outside LA..
What I get tired of is the macho attitude of many of the american teams. In contrast to the usual british sense that 'it's all in good fun' most of the US teams are overly competitive and pushy.
They get genuinely pissed off when they can't find something and especially when they lose, which takes all the fun out of it. The Miami gearheads are a case in point, though I guess they come from a particularly macho segment of US society.
Then there's the US team leader who thinks that a mixture of shouting 'let's go, let's go, let's go' and then berating his team members passes for leadership. Sheesh.
Not every team is like that of course, the High Flyers being a recent notable exception. Plus, they had the former governor of North Dakota.
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.
you insensitive clod!
I'm smarter than the average bear.
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.
What is so special about a robot that you need to see it directly instead of on television?
;)
...in San Francisco this Sunday: Power Tool Drag Races.
83chrise.nuf
...except they call it Pottery Barn. The junk doesnt do as much fun stuff though.
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.