Junkyard Wars
from the the-latest-in-gameshows dept
Wired is running an article about a show on TLC called Junkyard Wars which I haven’t heard of (shows how much of the Learning Channel I watch). Anyway, like all good American shows, it’s based on a British one. It takes teams of engineering-minded contestants, gives them a product to build (examples: a demolition machine, a mini-submarine), dumps them in a junkyard with lots and lots of tools, and gives them a day to find the parts and build. Of course, they’re also competing with another team. So, it’s not just about building the machine, but building it better. Sounds like the perfect show for Dennis, who built Techdirt under very similar conditions…
Comments on “Junkyard Wars”
England's people are undercapitalised
Yep, the show your talking about is Robot Wars. It was one of those programs that everyone made jokes about until they started watching it. It seems to appeal to anyone that likes tech toys (most men) and has been a hit for the channel that produced it.
There are some brilliant people here in England but they just seem so under capitalised. I’m working on a little plan to change that 😉 I’m looking into setting up a student tech fund and I’ve had some interested people don’t worry I’ll keep you updated 🙂
Re: Scrapheap challenge?
Hmm… the article indicates that the British version is called Scrapheap Challenge. Are there *two* British versions of the show?
UK Program
The UK program *is* Scrapheap Challenge. Robot Wars is an entirely different program and has nothing to do with scrapyards – it consists of
specially built robots beating the crap out of each other. Both good shows though.
Re: UK Program
Oops… sorry made a mistake, your right but I got confused with robot wars but both are good (and use the similar motifs). I guess you guys in the US will probably see a rip-off of robot wars soon.
Re: Re: UK Program
Battlebots has been on comedy central for a few weeks now…
Re: Re: Re: UK Program
Yeah, Battlebots is the same as Robot Wars. I went to a “tournament” in SF a few years ago. I think these two guys founded it, but then split up and Robot Wars turned into Battlebots. I don’t know what happened to the other half. It’s not as exciting as you’d think. The robots that win usually stick with KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) philosophies, and the really wacked designs get trashed.
Re: UK Program
sorry, forgot to put my name in the above post 😉