Junkyard Wars

Finally, some good junk on television…

The Learning Channel imported a British a television show, Scrapheap Challenge, with American contestants, and a Yank comedian/commentator, George Gray. It airs on Monday nights at 8 and 11 pm. This is Junkyard Wars. Here is the premise. Two four-member teams are given a Survivor-esque challenge to design and build a mechanical device from cobbled together parts found in a junkyard. A 10-hour time limit frames the contest. The following day, a head-to-head face-off determines which team advances to the next round in a single round elimination. Playing for a cheesy trophy that would win approval from Ben Stein, the victors enjoy a few minutes of fame and a champagne shower. Quirky? You bet. However, it has already attracted a loyal following. The Internet now plays an important role in elevating the attraction into cult status. Frankly, the attraction of the show has caused even dedicated Webheads to pull themselves away from computer screens and tune in for the hour show.

MacGiver Meets Home Improvement

The hook in the show’s popularity lies in the complete arc of the format – design, construction, and head-to-head winner take all competition. The stars of the show are technology and ingenuity. Other than the host/moderators, the cast of characters essentially changes from week to week. I have seen most of the shows. So far contestants have built hovercraft, battering rams, flying machines, catapults, mobile bridges, dragsters, and more within rather tight time constraints. Remember the components were scrapped parts found in a common junkyard. Amazing!

The Internet already helps in dispensing technical tidbits filling in the rich tapestry of this most unusual series of micro-dramas. The Learning Channel’s Junkyard Wars Web site sports solid background on the teams, the cast, and encourages an overall Junkyard Community. Teams of amateurs take on formidable tasks of design often involving surprising precision, welding, and at times heart stopping danger such as launching a flying machine via winch. Already, numerous teams have Web sites. The site of the junkyard NERDS team, New England Rubbish Deconstruction Society, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, puts new spin on the word. The Beach Boys, Three Revs a Minute, Metal Medics, and Art Attack each have a cyber-presence. More will follow. While a few of the team members are women, make no mistake, this a high-testosterone patch of the Web. An example is the number one reason found on the NERDS Web site given for why being on Junkyard Wars is better than being on Survivor: “You don’t get voted out by failing to backstab the right person. You get voted out by having your creation explode on-camera in a hail of flesh-rending shrapnel and fireballs of burning gasoline.” This kind of raw bravado typifies the Junkyard Wars spirit.

Taking Notice

The general Internet community has started to take notice. A Junkyard message board and chat room have come to life on the delphi.com Web site. Egroups, now Yahoo Groups, has an active Junkyard Wars listserv with a current membership of 47 mostly male enthusiasts. E-postings to the list are not only insightful but thought provoking and often sprinkled with humor. For example, in one e-mail, the observation was floated that each group accomplishes complicated tasks without fail within the 10 hour time allotment. Perhaps there was some flexibility in the rules in order to make for good television. A similar notion had crossed my mind.

Television shows like Junkyard Wars and Battlebots represent a new genre of entertainment in which technology collides with human imagination. Frankly, mankind will never see the day when robots, no matter highly developed, will evolve to the point where they come up with the ideas we witness on these shows. Somehow, that is comforting.

URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) of interest:

http://tlc.discovery.com/tlcpages/junkyard/junkyard.html

http://multima2k.co.uk/scrapheap/

(This is the 244th of a series of elementary articles designed for surfing the Internet. Next, “Juno Trainwreck?” is the subject on tap. Stay Tuned. Until next week, happy travels through cyberspace. Previous issues of Internet Info for Real People can be found: http://www.thebee.com. Please e-mail comments and suggestions: rbrand@JUNO.com or editor@thebee.com.)