It's been said the show is fake.... People who think that need to read the web site for the show.
They clearly admit to putting required elements in the yard. The experts have had some input on these elements.
There are several reasons this Must be done.
1. British law regulates certain items. Like the boilers use for the steem cars. The boilers and certain other parts for that challenge must have certificates of operation before they can be used.
2. The guests Do Not know anything about the challenge before they are told on taping day. The experts are to steer them in a direction and create the project in 10 hours of build time. (They take breaks for certain things and make other non building allowances.. details are on their web site.
Anyone that thinks the show is easy should read some of the related websites from people who have appeared as guests.
Even when you have all the parts... you still have to find them and put them together. Not even remotely easy to do in constrained time.
As for their experts.... I wonder where they find some of them... Some of those people are scary. there have been a few time where all I could do was shake my head and wonder what the "expert" was smoking....
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08:30 PM
PFF
System Bot
Tweek Member
Posts: 1085 From: Brunswick, ME USA Registered: Dec 2000
What's the Junkyard Wars URL? I think the show's neat even though I've only seen it once. (They were building some "cool" cars. Once flopped up and down on tracks and the other was some kind of table on top of a table.
Oh come on now - we have to go to a web site now and read disclaimers and explainations before we can click on the boobtube and zoneout on a tv show?!?!
they never say anything on the show about 'planting' stuff in the junk yard - and they certainly give the impression that the crews simply scavenge the parts up.
I really liked the show the first few times I saw it, until i caught on and realized its faked.
It would be better if they had challenges and gave both teams the same identical pile of junk or parts, or raw materials to work with. But to pretend, and then put explainations on their web site?!
and just so it doent sound like im being whinny - there are real events and things like this.
Professor Woody Flowers at MIT teaches mechanical engineering. As part of one of his courses his students have to build a machine from a box of miscilanious parts to complete against each other in a one on one playoff.
They use to put the competitions on tv, Alan Alda hosted the show every year on PBS. They did stuff like dumping 50 ping pong balls on the table, and the machine that captured the most won. It was great entertainment to watch what the engineering students came up with.
there is a program for high school students that spun off from that, founded by Dean Kamen, that inventor who all the fuss was over - his 'IT' secret project was in the news in january.
same kinda competition, except high school kids are teamed up with real engineers from sponsering corporations. They build radio controlled robots the size of washing machines, or bigger, and compete head to head against other teams in a robotic athletic type game.
So it can be done - and it is fun to do and to watch. i think junkyard wars probally started off on the right foot, but quickly ran out of 'doable' challenges, and ran into time and budget problems, so they started faking it.
Battle Bots on the Comedy Channel is pretty good too - though about half the battles end up being pretty one sided, and one machine descemates the other.
[This message has been edited by Ken Wittlief (edited 06-14-2001).]
Theogre beat me to it. The show is real. You have to watch it. Yes they can build go karts, land movers with the things in the junk yard no problem.
Last Monday, they had to build rockets, i wonder if any fiero's have model rocket engines?????? Must be a fake show. The show actually planted "they say this on the show" several model rocket engines hidden in a few cars and the teams have to go out and find them.
Anything that is unique in building, they will put in the yard for both teams to find.
In the vw newsgroup, someone mentioned they were elected to be on the show. Its just everday joes that go on the show and use their talent and know how to try and build these things.
Its like that discussion we had on John Denver a while back. Everyone loved his music and his love songs - great stuff
till we found out he was sleeping around on his 'Lovely Wife Annie' and his marriage fell apart. Beautiful love songs are only touching if you know they are from a sincere heart.
How many of you guys felt like you had been 'taken' when you found out all those great love songs Barry Manilow had been singing, he was singing about other guys - yuck yuck yuck!!!
or elton john.
Junkyard wars would be great if it were real (REAL real) - give them more time to brainstorm up ideas, give them a week to build their machines - but when they put the answers on the back of the exam paper its hard to take the challenge seriously.
In order to understand an the mind of an Engineer and his way of thinking:
Two engineering students were walking across campus when one said, "Where did you get such a great bike?" The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take what you want." The second engineer nodded pprovingly, "Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have fit." Comprehending Engineers - Take 2 ****************************** To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. Comprehending Engineers - Take 3 ****************************** A pastor, a doctor and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, "What's with these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!" The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude!" The pastor said, "Hey, here comes the greenskeeper. Let's have a word with him." [dramatic pause] "Hi, George. Say, what's with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?" The greenskeeper replied, "Oh, yes, that's a group of blind firefighters. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime." The group was silent for a moment. The pastor said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight. The doctor said, "Good idea. And I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist buddy and see if there's anything he can do for them." The engineer said, "Why can't these guys play at night?" Comprehending Engineers - Take 4 ****************************** There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he happily retired. Several years later the company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with one of their multimillion dollar machines. They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine to work but to no avail. In desperation, they called on the retired engineer who had solved so many of their problems in the past. The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying the huge machine. At the end of the day, he marked a small "x" in chalk on a particular component of the machine and stated, "This is where your problem is." The part was replaced and the machine worked perfectly again. The company received a bill for $50,000 from the engineer for his service. They demanded an itemized accounting of his charges. They got it!! One chalk mark $1. Knowing where to put it $49,999. It was paid in full, and the engineer retired again in peace. Comprehending Engineers - Take 5 ****************************** What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers? Mechanical Engineers build weapons; Civil Engineers build targets. Comprehending Engineers - Take 6 ****************************** The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?" The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?" The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?" The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?" Comprehending Engineers - Take 7 ****************************** Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible designers of the human body. One said, "It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints." Another said, "No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections." The last said, "Actually it was a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?" Comprehending Engineers - Take 8 ****************************** "Normal people believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet." ---- Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle Comprehending Engineers - Take 9 ****************************** An architect, an artist, and an engineer were discussing whether it was better to spend time with the wife or a mistress. The architect said he enjoyed time with his wife, building a solid foundation for an enduring relationship. The artist said he enjoyed time with his mistress, because of the passion and mystery he found there. The engineer said, "I like both." "Both?" Engineer: "Yeah. If you have a wife and a mistress, they will each assume you are spending time with the other woman, and you can go to the office and get some work done." Comprehending Engineers - Take 10 ******************************* An engineer was crossing a road one day when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess". He bent over, picked up the frog, and put it in his pocket. The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week." The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it, and returned it to the pocket. The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you and do ANYTHING you want." Again the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it, and put it back into his pocket. Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess and that I'll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?" The engineer said, "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog, now that's cool."
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10:40 AM
DRH Member
Posts: 2683 From: Onalaska, WI, USA Registered: Dec 1999
Well I like the show. Planting a few items around the place is hardly giving them a "kit" to use. How interesting would it be to watch one or both teams not be able to find a working motor or whatever and never have a competition?
I'm sure they cheat a bit on the 10 hours too. If one of the machines won't quite run how would you end the show? Declare the other team the winner by default? That would bother me more than knowing they bend the rules a bit to make sure they have a good show.
Frankly it's somewhat naive to watch ANY reality based show and think it's all "for real" and the producers haven't done anything to make sure the resulting product is worth watching.
you mean like the episode of Cops, where they respond to a house on fire, and the cop runs up to the front door, and starts banging on it, and starts knocking out windows that had iron bars, all the little windows in the frame
and Im sitting there watching this thinking, there is no sign of fire in that house, and there is no smoke coming out the window he just broke, and he cant get in that window cause it has bars on it, so why is he knocking out ALL the panes out of the window?
and if this house is on fire and there are people in there, why are two or more people standing here holding a camera, lights, a boom mike
1+1+1+1 = a re-inactment?!
turns out the house next door was on fire, and the lady in this house comes out and wants to know why the cop is breaking her windows.
it was cute, but the cop hammed it up just a little to much.
you sit down at a resturant overlooking niagara falls, and before your lunch is over you have a napkin full of equations, and you are estimating/calculating: how many gallons of water is going over right now how far it is falling how much energy per second that is how many homes will that 'wasted' water power if it was all going through a dam.
or
you are standing on the observation deck at the top of the world trade center, or you are flying in a plane at 30,000, and you start wondering, if I jump:
how long will it take till I hit the ground and
how fast will i be going when i hit
and you can actually figure out the answers in your head.
or
you are standing beside lake Ontario at sunset after a beautiful summer day, and you start to wonder, it I completely submerge myself in the lake, how far will the water rise
and you can figure it out in your head (its not zero BTW)
or if it makes you crazy seeing people riding mountain bikes on paved roads, instead of 27" racing bikes with 110 psi tires
or if you want to slap someone when you see them DRIVING with their PARKING lights on "Look at that! a parked car going 70mph!"
or if you know how to make lightning hit someones house or car or a specific tree if you want to
then you might be an engineer!
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11:46 AM
JSocha Member
Posts: 3522 From: Felton, MN, USA Registered: Apr 2001
Glad you enjoyed them KW. Our Engineer laughed his @ss off when I sent them to him after I had gotten them, I think it was from my sister. I felt it was appropriate for this topic talking about designing stuff.
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11:56 AM
LZeitgeist Member
Posts: 5662 From: Raleigh, NC, U.S.A. Registered: Dec 2000
I figured out that junkyard wars was fake when I saw the rc plane and blimp bomber episode. The guy on the blimp side just happened to find the entire roll of Mylar that he was looking for in the back of a wrecked car. Or the clodbuster (with the radio) that they took all of the servo's and motors off of. BTW the show owns all of the junk in that junkyard and it was put in a backlot for the show. They lost the lot and had to put all of the stuff (I think it was 6 million dollars worth) in storage until they could find another place to put it. The lady that came up with the idea said that she thought of it after she was watching Apollo 13 and saw the engineers adapting the co2 scrubbers for the LEM
JSocha and Ken, It seems that the traits of engineers and the symptoms of Obsessive cumpulsion disorder are the same. I've heard that Prozac helps.
According to the official and the guests web sites.... the yard is a section of a working scrapyard outside London. The show does not own everything in there. In one show taping one of the guest groups robbed parts off an operational crane that they weren't suposed to strip. The yard owners were not amused.
Cathy Rodgers, now also one of the co-hosts, is responsible for the creation of the show. She says she got the idea from watching Apolo 13 in the scene where they are trying to figure out how to fix the CO2 scrubber in the LEM.
btw... someone comented in another thread about Robot Wars being hosted by Craig Charles, Lyster of Red Drawf fame.... Rob Lewellen, who hosts the first 2 seasons of JW played Kryton on Red Drawf. He's got a book out. I think it's called Man in the rubber mask.
