MYTHBUSTERS 2015 Season Thread
- Thread starter Christopher
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They moved the engine from behind the rear wheel to in front of it, so they had to flip it around so the drive shaft would still be in contact with the wheel.
The amphibious bicycle was my favorite part.
It's too bad they didn't have better luck with the motorcycle because I love that dieselpunk or post-apocalyptic look that it has. Looks like some shirtless dude with goggles should be running it at Burning Man.
Right. I guess they would have had to move the engine too far forward to maintain use of the forward gears, which would have defeated the purpose of moving it in the first place.
On the amphibious bike myth, I really liked how Jaimie formed his pontoons. I though it was really cool.
I kind of wonder if there wasn't a way to incorporate an intermediately wheel between the drive-wheel/"shaft" on the engine and the actual tire? Another wheel between the two would have negated the need to drive in reverse, allowing the forward gears to be used. I'm sure they could have found a way to mount it between the two wheels and used some circular part from the car, like a wheel hub or something. Though it would have added another layer of complexity meaning another potential fail-point.
It is interesting how they had photos from of the actual vehicle and didn't notice the stabilizer it had that would have made driving it more steady.
EDIT:
From re-watching the episode just now:
There's no clear mechanical reason why the engine was flipped. The drive-shaft/drums were on both sides of the engine as would make sense, since the original car is two-wheel drive and not 1-wheel drive. (They both can be seen in various shots, as well as in the graphics used to describe what was going on.) It seemed to be the "best" way to balance the vehicle, maybe? Unsure, it's not made really clear on why it was done that way, maybe when originally doing the project that was the only way the guy could move the engine since he didn't have the strength to physically move it to the center of the frame so he simply spun it around.
But as I suspected above, Jamie and Adam had their wheels on the same centerline, it seems the design from the myth have the wheels off-set, plus the out-riggers as stabilizers. (Which I'm still surprised Adam missed, I saw them in one of the photos Adam had of the actual "motorcycle.")
So here's another question I have after thinking of this some.
I suppose stability has something to do with this, but they moved the engine, meaning they had to use reverse in order to let the drive-wheel move the car forward.
It is interesting how they had photos from of the actual vehicle and didn't notice the stabilizer it had that would have made driving it more steady.
EDIT:
From re-watching the episode just now:
There's no clear mechanical reason why the engine was flipped. The drive-shaft/drums were on both sides of the engine as would make sense, since the original car is two-wheel drive and not 1-wheel drive. (They both can be seen in various shots, as well as in the graphics used to describe what was going on.) It seemed to be the "best" way to balance the vehicle, maybe? Unsure, it's not made really clear on why it was done that way, maybe when originally doing the project that was the only way the guy could move the engine since he didn't have the strength to physically move it to the center of the frame so he simply spun it around.
But as I suspected above, Jamie and Adam had their wheels on the same centerline, it seems the design from the myth have the wheels off-set, plus the out-riggers as stabilizers. (Which I'm still surprised Adam missed, I saw them in one of the photos Adam had of the actual "motorcycle.")
So here's another question I have after thinking of this some.
I suppose stability has something to do with this, but they moved the engine, meaning they had to use reverse in order to let the drive-wheel move the car forward.
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I think then it would have been way topheavy and fallen over.
The "drifting" episode wasn't all that interesting for me. Too much of it was just shots of racing cars and screeching tires, and I wanted them to get on with the mythbusting after a while.
I'd wondered why anyone would want to race with a technique that was so profligate of tire rubber, but it does seem to require a great deal of skill and practice to get it right, and I can see the appeal of that in a competition. Still, drifting is pretty clearly an inefficient technique for cornering. I'm not surprised that Adam's 180-degree drift turn lost a full second over Jamie's normal 180-degree U-turn, because the car had to drag itself to a near-stop and then accelerate again in the other direction, while Jamie was able to maintain more speed around the turn -- because obviously it's easier to maintain speed when the wheels are rolling forward rather than dragging sideways. It's strange that anyone would think that was actually a faster technique. It must just convey that impression psychologically because it's noisier and screechier, but if you ignore that and just observe the motion of the overall vehicle, it's clear it's coming much closer to a stop as it scrapes unnaturally sideways. I can appreciate the skill required to make that move, but it's style over performance.
It was funny to see their test car getting progressively more banged up and duct-taped, though.
All in all, there just wasn't enough of an idea here to devote a whole episode to. They should've spent half an episode on this stuff and the other half on something else. Although... It strikes me that drifting is similar in principle to a Rockford turn, aka a J-turn -- the signature move in The Rockford Files where you put a car in reverse, then brake and spin 180 degrees while in motion. Which seems like it's definitely a faster way of reversing your car's orientation. I would've liked to see them try that out.
I'd wondered why anyone would want to race with a technique that was so profligate of tire rubber, but it does seem to require a great deal of skill and practice to get it right, and I can see the appeal of that in a competition. Still, drifting is pretty clearly an inefficient technique for cornering. I'm not surprised that Adam's 180-degree drift turn lost a full second over Jamie's normal 180-degree U-turn, because the car had to drag itself to a near-stop and then accelerate again in the other direction, while Jamie was able to maintain more speed around the turn -- because obviously it's easier to maintain speed when the wheels are rolling forward rather than dragging sideways. It's strange that anyone would think that was actually a faster technique. It must just convey that impression psychologically because it's noisier and screechier, but if you ignore that and just observe the motion of the overall vehicle, it's clear it's coming much closer to a stop as it scrapes unnaturally sideways. I can appreciate the skill required to make that move, but it's style over performance.
It was funny to see their test car getting progressively more banged up and duct-taped, though.
All in all, there just wasn't enough of an idea here to devote a whole episode to. They should've spent half an episode on this stuff and the other half on something else. Although... It strikes me that drifting is similar in principle to a Rockford turn, aka a J-turn -- the signature move in The Rockford Files where you put a car in reverse, then brake and spin 180 degrees while in motion. Which seems like it's definitely a faster way of reversing your car's orientation. I would've liked to see them try that out.
Yeah, kind of a meh episode. I wasn't too surprised either that the idea didn't pan out. As you said, Christopher any speed advantage potentially gained is negated by the fact that for part of the time while drifting the car is moving sideways or not at all, rather than making progress.
Maybe I wasn't entirely clear, though, on what conditions the "myth" was supposed to be under. Their animation showed a car moving down the street and Jamie's "control" tests had him making a 90-deg turn at speed. When most people slow down, ease into a turn, and then speed back up. The "idea" I thought was that doing a drift-turn eliminates the need to slow down for the turn and, thus, is faster. Which I would think in would marginally be the case here. But, again, likely negated by the car spending time moving sideways rather than forward.
The everyday test car they were using looked like a '90s era Accord, and man I started feeling sorry for that thing by the end of the episode. And this is a show where I wasn't bothered by them taking classic cars and utterly destroying them.
I don't mourn the loss of that Accord but at least most of their destroyed cars had glorious, quick, deaths. They abused the hell out of this poor little thing. Bent control arms, duck/t-taping panels back on, overheating the engine, causing back-fires. It was sad, but at the same time also pretty hilarious and awesome.
The parallel parking tests were interesting but no surprise the practical applications didn't work since it's probably pretty hard to be that precise with the technique. Though their professional probably could have done it.
The classic-limo they used also was interesting to see drift-park and I wasn't too surprised they couldn't do it. Though I was surprised that the professional driver was able to do it, I would have figured the driving mechanics and dynamics of the vehicle would have been so off he wouldn't have been able to do it.
I did find it funny that whomever they got the limo from didn't want them to wreck it, so no real cars to straddle the parking space. But they were perfectly okay with the car's mechanics being abused by doing all of these turns. I doubt that car's suspension, tires, and engine could handle what was happening.
I mean, I "get" not wanting their car wreck but at the same time... Go ahead and abuse the hell out of the mechanical components of it?
Sort of a lack-luster (mid)-season finale.
But, I guess, it wasn't a tie-in episode so there's that.
Maybe I wasn't entirely clear, though, on what conditions the "myth" was supposed to be under. Their animation showed a car moving down the street and Jamie's "control" tests had him making a 90-deg turn at speed. When most people slow down, ease into a turn, and then speed back up. The "idea" I thought was that doing a drift-turn eliminates the need to slow down for the turn and, thus, is faster. Which I would think in would marginally be the case here. But, again, likely negated by the car spending time moving sideways rather than forward.
The everyday test car they were using looked like a '90s era Accord, and man I started feeling sorry for that thing by the end of the episode. And this is a show where I wasn't bothered by them taking classic cars and utterly destroying them.
I don't mourn the loss of that Accord but at least most of their destroyed cars had glorious, quick, deaths. They abused the hell out of this poor little thing. Bent control arms, duck/t-taping panels back on, overheating the engine, causing back-fires. It was sad, but at the same time also pretty hilarious and awesome.
The parallel parking tests were interesting but no surprise the practical applications didn't work since it's probably pretty hard to be that precise with the technique. Though their professional probably could have done it.
The classic-limo they used also was interesting to see drift-park and I wasn't too surprised they couldn't do it. Though I was surprised that the professional driver was able to do it, I would have figured the driving mechanics and dynamics of the vehicle would have been so off he wouldn't have been able to do it.
I did find it funny that whomever they got the limo from didn't want them to wreck it, so no real cars to straddle the parking space. But they were perfectly okay with the car's mechanics being abused by doing all of these turns. I doubt that car's suspension, tires, and engine could handle what was happening.
I mean, I "get" not wanting their car wreck but at the same time... Go ahead and abuse the hell out of the mechanical components of it?
Sort of a lack-luster (mid)-season finale.
But, I guess, it wasn't a tie-in episode so there's that.
Maybe that is the idea, but I think that was busted by the demonstration that it's possible to make a turn without slowing down and without drifting either. So it's not really necessary to save time on a curve, and it's very, very hard to get right, and it's much harder on the car and the tires. So it is by no means a better cornering technique.
I figured he must've been able to do it, since he was presumably Adam's driving double in that silly "cinematic" opening sequence with the limo screeching through the streets. We saw a drift-parallel-park maneuver there, so therefore it must've been doable by a professional stunt driver.
Oh, I didn't know it was a finale.
So that gives us about half a season of the new format, and so far I'm not sure it's really an improvement. I was hoping for more focus on the technical and scientific details, and we've gotten some of that, but a lot of that has been cancelled out by an emphasis on flash over substance, and a lot of it feels like it's more about Adam and Jamie finding excuses to indulge themselves with building projects and mini-fanfilms than about mythbusting. I had my problems with the M7 trio's methodology at times, and they rarely interacted much with Adam and Jamie so it was kind of like having two separate shows, but having five Mythbusters brought more variety to the show, more of a sense of community, rather than just two middle-aged guys tinkering around in their really elaborate garage.
And the selection of myths hasn't been that great, and has been too focused on movie/media-based scenarios. Last week's episode was the only one that didn't have some media tie-in, aside from its misleading "Transformers" title. Granted, there were no actual movie references in this one, but the whole "drifting" thing has been popularized by things like the Fast and Furious movies.
So all in all, the show feels less expansive and less versatile now, even compared to the early seasons when it was just Adam and Jamie. I fear it's lost more than it's gained. Although there's still hope that the back half (or so?) of the season will be better, that these are just the pangs of adjusting to the new status quo.
By the way, I was wondering something last night: What do they use the Alameda runway for when the Mythbusters and Hollywood filmmakers aren't using it?
There's an annual nationwide rally race of dubious legality modeled heavily on the Cannonball Run and and Fast & Furious movies that occasionally uses it as a checkpoint because the long runways allow the cars to chase a semi-trailer.
As you mentioned they used it for movies and TV, such as to build the freeway in the Matrix Reloaded and an airliner crash in the TV series Trauma. Apparently you can still see the outline of the freeway they constructed in Google Earth.
Other than that, it just sits there awaiting development. The city has awarded multiple contracts to turn the area surrounding the runways into a high-end housing and business development called Alameda Point since 2000, but they've fallen through for various reasons like the cost of the environmental cleanup required, the companies over-spending during the planning stage without any actual development, and the recession. The area occupied by the runways themselves would have become a wildlife refuge in both the major proposals.
^So basically, without the Mythbusters and Hollywood, it'd be abandoned. No wonder they're so free to crash and explode things on it, drive bolts into the tarmac, etc.
I want to know how much the show spends per annum replacing the fences there, though...
No, apparently last Saturday's episode was the midseason finale. So they're about halfway through and it's on hiatus for a while.
Heads up: New episodes resume tonight at 9 Eastern.
Thanks for the reminder!
I've updated my DVR since the last season of MB and this was one series I had not reset yet.
I now never have to worry about this again since the new DVR saves the series recording info onto a separate service provider server, not the set top box. Aren't you glad you asked?
I've updated my DVR since the last season of MB and this was one series I had not reset yet.
I now never have to worry about this again since the new DVR saves the series recording info onto a separate service provider server, not the set top box. Aren't you glad you asked?
Good episode, though part of it was a popular-culture "myth" test it was actually an interesting one, the bomb/boat myth was also pretty cool. Shame it didn't work as it did in the small-scale but I wonder how accurately they scaled it up as far as depths, the size of the bomb, etc.
Still cool to say and was genuinely concerned when the bomb didn't go off, luckily it apparently was just a faulty switch and not in the wiring or the bomb itself.
Still cool to say and was genuinely concerned when the bomb didn't go off, luckily it apparently was just a faulty switch and not in the wiring or the bomb itself.
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