"There's some kind of childish instinct in all of us to make something out of old crap," says Cathy Rogers, creator and cohost of the BBC show Scrapheap Challenge, which hits US airwaves on the Learning Channel as Junkyard Wars (www.junkyard-wars.com). In Britain, the average show draws 2.2 million viewers, who tune in for one hour to watch two three-person teams scavenge parts from an industrial scrap heap, then race to build the assigned contraption - an engine-powered walking machine, for example, or an amphibious vehicle - within a 10-hour time frame. The Survivor-meets-MacGyver atmosphere is interspersed with playbook-style diagrams of the engineering principles behind each team's efforts. Who will build a better dragster - members of the Chicago Fire Department or the Texas Scrap Daddies? Tune in this January to watch the first American scrappers go head-to-head.
ELECTRIC WORD
Photo Op
Monkeyshrines
King Of The Heap
Packet Switcher
Terminal Bliss
Spring Training
