How Tech Works (2012–…): Season 2, Episode 3 - Episode #2.3 - full transcript
On this episode
of How Tech Works,
we hit the links
at St. Andrews golf course
with gear that's
over 100 years old
and still state of the art!
And...
things are about to get small,
very small,
with this micro engraver.
Hello, I'm Dr. Basil Singer,
and you are in
for a thrill ride
on this episode
of How Tech Works.
We've got the solution
for your need for speed.
Horse boarding, speeding along
on this skateboard...
pulled by a racehorse!
But first,
I'll admit this story is not
big on high-speed stunts,
but it will blow your mind.
It's all about engraving.
Yes... engraving.
You see, the engraver
you're about to meet
does his work
on a miniature level.
So miniature that you have
to call it microscopic.
Have a look.
Take a close look at this coin.
Can you see anything unusual?
How about now?
Right there on that tiny ridge.
It's an entire phrase.
The letters too small
to see with the naked eye,
but carved entirely by hand.
I'm trying to push
the limits as far as possible
to try and engrave smaller
than anybody else.
In Birmingham's
historic jewelry quarter,
Graham Short is a living legend.
A master engraver
working in a tiny world
that few can comprehend.
The job I'm most
proud of is engraving the words
'nothing is impossible' along
the sharp edge of a razor blade.
Many, many times it went wrong.
Every micro-engraving
starts by prepping
the micro-tools.
I've got some Victorian needles
which I rub down
as much as I can
to make them even smaller.
Graham uses a candle
to get the needle's steel
just right.
They're very brittle.
So, I use a candle...
but because the needle
is so thin,
the heat shoots right
to the end of the needle
and it's too soft then.
So, then I have to harden it.
I can spend probably three days
trying to get it right.
That's probably all right.
His ultimate test for sharpness
is not for the squeamish.
That's quite sharp.
That's good,
that doesn't hurt at all.
And it certainly won't bleed.
They're frighteningly sharp
on the point.
They've got to be
small to engrave
because I'm pushing
the limits of engraving so far.
The majority of Graham's work
is done on the heads
of gold pins.
I try to use objects
that everybody will recognize.
I want them to know
how difficult it is.
Famous quotes
and sayings are his specialty,
but it all began with a prayer.
I started working
on The Lord's Prayer
about 40 years ago.
Seventy words, 278 letters,
all precisely carved
onto a surface
the size of...
well, a pin head.
From here,
there was no turning back.
I've engraved
England's World Cup
goal scorers on a football stud.
That's from 1950, when England
went into the competition
to the present day.
Thirty-eight names on that.
I've also engraved
on the end of a silver bullet,
where the firing pin strikes.
I've engraved
the second amendment.
The American Bill of Rights
which allows Americans
to bear arms.
On the tiny tip
of this paperclip
is a famous quote
by Norman Mailer.
I want to try,
more than anything,
to shock people with my work.
I want them to think,
"That's impossible to do."
And I'm happy with that.
That's enough for me.
Amazingly,
the key to Graham's precision
is fitness!
At 65,
he still swims six miles a day.
And it's all to keep
a steady hand and heart.
The fitter I am,
the lower my resting pulse rate,
and that's what I'm aiming for.
And at the moment,
my resting pulse rate
is about 30 beats a minute.
At this micro-scale,
even Graham's pulse
could throw him off.
He tapes a stethoscope
to his chest
so he can work
between heartbeats.
He straps his engraving arm
tightly in place, then...
he waits.
Everything...
must be perfect.
Right,
I'm just about to engrave
the bar on the top
of the letter 'T'.
I'm waiting...
until the moment feels right
to put in the slightest
amount of pressure.
And I can hear my heart beating.
If I can do it
between heartbeats,
it will be okay.
I'm waiting.
I'm in the right position.
That's it.
If I can do...
say, seven cuts a night,
that's a good night.
And that would give me
a letter 'E'
and a letter 'F' completed.
The job Graham just
started could take months,
even years, before
it looks like these.
To say this work is slow
is a massive understatement.
But it's all starting
to pay off.
That engraved razor blade
was recently appraised
at over £48,000.
To Graham,
the best is yet to come.
Today,
in London's Mayfair district,
his full collection is on
display for the very first time.
Through bespoke microscopes,
these tiny works of art are now
becoming larger than life.
I just thought
it was incredible.
Phenomenal.
I was speechless.
It's kind of disbelief.
You want to go back
and back again
to really make sure that
your eyes are not deceiving you.
The response has been fantastic.
It's been better than
I could have hoped for.
I like people's reaction
when they look at the work,
they can't believe it!
And I love to see
the look on their face,
it's excellent.
When it comes to sports tech,
there's always pressure
on athletes
to have the very latest
and most advanced equipment,
whether it's lighter, stronger
materials such as carbon fiber
and titanium, or computer
assisted training techniques.
So, what happens when
you play a round of golf
using wooden clubs from
over a hundred years ago?
Let's go to St. Andrews
in Scotland to find out.
St. Andrews in Scotland.
This is the home of golf.
We know golf has been played
for about 600 years
in St. Andrews.
In that time,
golf equipment
has seen a lot of change.
But while many brands
dabble in materials
like graphite and carbon fiber,
this local club maker...
is sticking with wood.
Hamish Steedman runs
a unique workshop,
St. Andrews Golf Company.
It's the only traditional
golf club maker left on Earth.
And surprisingly, the only club
maker at all left in Scotland.
We're very conscious that we are
the last club maker in Scotland.
And very passionate about
keeping that history alive.
The company's roots
trace back to 1881,
but some of their clubs,
like this Long Nose Spoon,
go back even further.
This club would have been used
from the start of golf,
effectively.
True to tradition,
the clubs around here
begin as a block of wood.
With the Long Nose Clubs,
there's really a sort of
beechwood that they used,
which was a softer wood.
The putter heads we manufacture,
that's a maple wood.
With the rough shapes cut out,
the smaller chunks
go into a special lathe.
Tracing a stainless steel
master copy,
the lathes turn the wooden
heads down to exact dimensions.
Every club is made to play.
So, accuracy is everything.
Just as important as shape...
is weight.
Molten lead is used
to bring each head up to spec.
Every head is weighed
and meets a tolerance level.
Soon, the club head
is ready to meet the shaft.
For this, the team still
uses hickory wood.
One of the reasons
they used hickory
was because it was quite
a straight grain,
and it's quite a strong club
that had a good flex.
Even the best materials
rely on skilled craftsmen
to put them together.
Around here,
that's taken very seriously.
A new club maker,
to come into the business,
it'll probably take him a couple
of years to be left alone
to actually craft a craft
from start to finish.
They are artisans,
there's no doubt about that.
Although
the materials have changed,
when it came to hitting a ball
in the olden days,
the same physics still applied.
Modern clubs, with their
oversized sweet spots,
are a lot more forgiving.
And golf balls have become
far more springy
and aerodynamic
over the centuries.
But according to Hamish,
club performance hasn't
actually improved that much.
That was a theory
we had to see to believe.
Stepping into the company's
golf simulator room,
it's time to do some good ole
How Tech Works-style testing.
What we're going to do today,
have a bit of fun,
and we're going to compare
the three different golf clubs.
From the Modern club,
going right back to your
Long Nose from the 1880 period,
just to compare
the distances and performance
and see just how similar
these clubs really are.
So, I've got Grant here
who's going to be my
specialist club hitter.
Let's start
with the modern club.
So, this is your Driver
with the 460 CC head.
That was a great shot, Grant.
Straight up the middle.
278 yards.
Now we move onto our Brassy,
which is a 1920s club.
Another great strike.
269 yards.
Now we move back to our
Long Nose club from the 1880s.
So, let's see how
we get on with this one.
Again,
three great strikes in a row.
262 yards with our Long Nose
from the 1880s.
It's interesting to see that
there's very little difference
with the three different clubs.
This really does show
that it's the golf ball
that's taking the distance.
It's not really the golf club.
As the leather grip
winds into place,
one more club
is ready for the links.
A beautiful and functional
piece of craft work.
After 130 years in the business,
the team
at St. Andrews Golf Company
is definitely keeping the
ancient history of golf alive.
Coming up on How Tech Works...
Inflatable robots?
All in a day's work at Otherlab!
And...
Go!
It's called horse boarding
and you saw it here first!
Welcome back to How Tech Works.
\N
I'm Basil Singer.
Now, as far
as cool science jobs go,
it's true, mine is near
the top of the list.
But I have to admit,
the research and development
company in this next story
makes a day at the office
seem more like...
Well, a day at the fun fair.
It's called Otherlab,
and yes,
it lives up to its name.
Have a look.
Despite appearances,
this team is not actually
messing about.
This is business as usual
for the staff at Otherlab.
What pressure
are you operating at?
I'm operating at 10 PSA.
Part laboratory,
part workshop,
Otherlab's goal
is pretty ambitious.
We want to solve every problem
in the energy space.
Taking on
big problems like that
takes big brains.
All kinds of them.
Most of the people
that work here have degrees
across varying specialties.
Everything from art
and graphic design,
comic book art
to mechanical engineering,
controls theory,
applied physics,
mathematics, simulation,
computer science,
software engineering.
Meet Ant Roach.
It's massive!
And it only weighs about 32 kg.
Ant Roach can support almost
15 times that weight, though.
We're trying to see, just...
can we make an inflatable robot?
Basically, that moves
and does interesting things.
The strength
of inflatable robots like this
is pretty amazing,
given that it's made of fabric.
Of course,
that's super strong fabric!
We have all these options,
and we're not constrained by
the mechanical gearing system.
So, we can use hydraulics,
we can use pneumatics.
Then, we can basically make
very light-weight structures
that move in many, many ways.
Because textiles
are so flexible,
they can make all kinds
of interesting shapes.
Unlike more traditional robots,
inflatable ones
are a lot cheaper.
The materials cost
for this arm alone
is probably only
on the order of $20.
Getting Ant Roach to walk
requires a few connections.
This thing has 28
different degrees of freedom.
Which basically means
it has 28 different actuators.
And each single actuator has
to have its own operated valve.
Every air flow has to have
a little valve that operates it,
which has an electrical signal
that operates that valve,
which traces back
to a little central computer
that controls it.
And then we have
the wireless link
to a main computer.
Inflating and deflating
the actuators is like
contracting a muscle.
The result is an inflatable
robot that can walk, turn,
and stick its nose into things.
For a large class
of engineering problems,
the solutions have tended
to be rigid, heavy structures
when there was really no reason
for it other than convention.
Otherlab hopes
that breathing life
into robotics
will make a huge difference.
We're investigating
everything from
explosives removal
to lightweight locomotion,
to human-safe orthotics
to augment people
with physical impairments.
In the meantime,
they're just enjoying the ride.
Our last story doth
harken back to a time
when horses were ridden into war
by knights in shining armor.
More recently,
there's a group of competitors
who still need
to don their armor
when it comes time
to go into battle.
The only difference is
these knights
are on shining skateboards!
If it sounds weird
and a little bit wild...
that's because it is!
So, take a good look at what
one day may be an Olympic sport.
It's called horse boarding.
In Malvern, England,
today is the biggest
race day of the season.
Horse and rider teams
have come from across
the country to compete.
But this isn't
your typical horse race.
Go!
This is horse boarding.
It's adrenaline.
It's the simplest way
of describing it.
It's a pure adrenaline rush.
It's a brand new extreme sport,
and if you're anything
like us here at How Tech Works,
you're probably wondering
one thing...
Horse boarding?
Um, what's that?
Daniel Fowler-Prime
is one of the best
in this sport.
He's also its creator.
Today, he's got the national
championship trophy on his mind.
We have some new teams,
we were finding our feet
in the last competition,
so, we'll see,
there should be some good races.
It all started
about five years ago
When Daniel decided
to mix his day job
as a professional trick rider
with his love of board sports.
It was like, "Can we tie
it to the back of a horse?"
Ready!
And then we started
experimenting from there
as to what can be done and what
the application of it would be.
Five years on,
the sport has
a country-wide following
and its own national
race circuit
where teams go head to head
on a 100m drag strip!
So what do you need to play?
If you want to start
horse boarding,
the first thing you're
going to need is a board.
Now, we use
Off-Road mountain boards.
These have got
pneumatic tires on them.
And toe straps.
No heel straps.
So that you can get your feet
in and out of the board quickly.
If we flip the board over,
we use the skate truck,
and we put hard
compound rubbers in here
as opposed to the soft
or medium compound rubbers,
so that at high speeds,
it's not as twitchy
as it could be.
For the tow rope,
a standard wakeboard
handle is used.
A special quick-release clip
allows the horse rider
to detach it from
the saddle in a hurry.
Finally, there's the padding.
To Daniel, that's the most
important piece of kit.
When it comes to race day,
you strap yourself in knowing
that you're going to crash.
The question is how controlled
that crash is going to be,
and hopefully,
it's over the finish line.
To avoid a crash,
the best skill
you can have is balance.
Go, go, go!
You've got to be able
to recover the board
when you get bent
into awkward positions
as the acceleration is so fast.
Let him go, go on!
At speeds close to 14 mph,
communication is also key.
The board rider is the driver,
But the horse rider
is the controls.
So, the board rider tells
the horse rider
what to do with the horse
and where to go.
OK, release!
But to win races,
all that means nothing
without a good horse.
In a competition sense,
the most important thing that's
going to make a team good or bad
is the consistency of the horse.
You've got to have a good horse
that's steady in the box.
Go, go!
Go on!
After years of stunt riding,
Daniel's horse, Rohan,
is as steady as it gets.
Together,
they go by the name 'I-Horse'.
To stay on top,
even they need to practice,
and time is running out.
Ladies and gentleman,
welcome to the National Horse
Boarding Championships, 2011!
Today has been
an interesting competition.
In first place at the moment,
we have I-Horse with 89 points.
They're going to get through
to the knock-out finals.
And it's anyone games
when it gets to there.
What do you think
about that, Andy?
I think they're
going to win it, Tom.
We've got four points each,
haven't we?
You've got... what?
Four points,
I've got four points.
It's sudden death!
In the final race
of the weekend,
It's I-Horse
vs. Perfectly Frank,
the biggest and strongest horse
in the competition.
This isn't going to be easy.
Go!
Right from
the starting block,
this race is a dead heat!
As the riders
cross the finish...
It's hard to tell
who actually won.
Then...
the judges make their call.
Yeah!
That is Perfectly Frank
in first place
on the 2011 National Horse
Boarding Championship!
As the season comes
to a close,
there is some disappointment
for Daniel in his own defeat.
As for the sport he created,
he's certain it's a winner.
The future of the sport,
we're looking for nothing less
than world championships.
Next year,
there's going to be competitions
in at least France,
England, and Scotland.
And this is
the very tip of the iceberg.
Yeah,
we haven't even started yet.
You've been watching
How Tech Works.
I'm Basil Singer,
and I'll see you next time.
of How Tech Works,
we hit the links
at St. Andrews golf course
with gear that's
over 100 years old
and still state of the art!
And...
things are about to get small,
very small,
with this micro engraver.
Hello, I'm Dr. Basil Singer,
and you are in
for a thrill ride
on this episode
of How Tech Works.
We've got the solution
for your need for speed.
Horse boarding, speeding along
on this skateboard...
pulled by a racehorse!
But first,
I'll admit this story is not
big on high-speed stunts,
but it will blow your mind.
It's all about engraving.
Yes... engraving.
You see, the engraver
you're about to meet
does his work
on a miniature level.
So miniature that you have
to call it microscopic.
Have a look.
Take a close look at this coin.
Can you see anything unusual?
How about now?
Right there on that tiny ridge.
It's an entire phrase.
The letters too small
to see with the naked eye,
but carved entirely by hand.
I'm trying to push
the limits as far as possible
to try and engrave smaller
than anybody else.
In Birmingham's
historic jewelry quarter,
Graham Short is a living legend.
A master engraver
working in a tiny world
that few can comprehend.
The job I'm most
proud of is engraving the words
'nothing is impossible' along
the sharp edge of a razor blade.
Many, many times it went wrong.
Every micro-engraving
starts by prepping
the micro-tools.
I've got some Victorian needles
which I rub down
as much as I can
to make them even smaller.
Graham uses a candle
to get the needle's steel
just right.
They're very brittle.
So, I use a candle...
but because the needle
is so thin,
the heat shoots right
to the end of the needle
and it's too soft then.
So, then I have to harden it.
I can spend probably three days
trying to get it right.
That's probably all right.
His ultimate test for sharpness
is not for the squeamish.
That's quite sharp.
That's good,
that doesn't hurt at all.
And it certainly won't bleed.
They're frighteningly sharp
on the point.
They've got to be
small to engrave
because I'm pushing
the limits of engraving so far.
The majority of Graham's work
is done on the heads
of gold pins.
I try to use objects
that everybody will recognize.
I want them to know
how difficult it is.
Famous quotes
and sayings are his specialty,
but it all began with a prayer.
I started working
on The Lord's Prayer
about 40 years ago.
Seventy words, 278 letters,
all precisely carved
onto a surface
the size of...
well, a pin head.
From here,
there was no turning back.
I've engraved
England's World Cup
goal scorers on a football stud.
That's from 1950, when England
went into the competition
to the present day.
Thirty-eight names on that.
I've also engraved
on the end of a silver bullet,
where the firing pin strikes.
I've engraved
the second amendment.
The American Bill of Rights
which allows Americans
to bear arms.
On the tiny tip
of this paperclip
is a famous quote
by Norman Mailer.
I want to try,
more than anything,
to shock people with my work.
I want them to think,
"That's impossible to do."
And I'm happy with that.
That's enough for me.
Amazingly,
the key to Graham's precision
is fitness!
At 65,
he still swims six miles a day.
And it's all to keep
a steady hand and heart.
The fitter I am,
the lower my resting pulse rate,
and that's what I'm aiming for.
And at the moment,
my resting pulse rate
is about 30 beats a minute.
At this micro-scale,
even Graham's pulse
could throw him off.
He tapes a stethoscope
to his chest
so he can work
between heartbeats.
He straps his engraving arm
tightly in place, then...
he waits.
Everything...
must be perfect.
Right,
I'm just about to engrave
the bar on the top
of the letter 'T'.
I'm waiting...
until the moment feels right
to put in the slightest
amount of pressure.
And I can hear my heart beating.
If I can do it
between heartbeats,
it will be okay.
I'm waiting.
I'm in the right position.
That's it.
If I can do...
say, seven cuts a night,
that's a good night.
And that would give me
a letter 'E'
and a letter 'F' completed.
The job Graham just
started could take months,
even years, before
it looks like these.
To say this work is slow
is a massive understatement.
But it's all starting
to pay off.
That engraved razor blade
was recently appraised
at over £48,000.
To Graham,
the best is yet to come.
Today,
in London's Mayfair district,
his full collection is on
display for the very first time.
Through bespoke microscopes,
these tiny works of art are now
becoming larger than life.
I just thought
it was incredible.
Phenomenal.
I was speechless.
It's kind of disbelief.
You want to go back
and back again
to really make sure that
your eyes are not deceiving you.
The response has been fantastic.
It's been better than
I could have hoped for.
I like people's reaction
when they look at the work,
they can't believe it!
And I love to see
the look on their face,
it's excellent.
When it comes to sports tech,
there's always pressure
on athletes
to have the very latest
and most advanced equipment,
whether it's lighter, stronger
materials such as carbon fiber
and titanium, or computer
assisted training techniques.
So, what happens when
you play a round of golf
using wooden clubs from
over a hundred years ago?
Let's go to St. Andrews
in Scotland to find out.
St. Andrews in Scotland.
This is the home of golf.
We know golf has been played
for about 600 years
in St. Andrews.
In that time,
golf equipment
has seen a lot of change.
But while many brands
dabble in materials
like graphite and carbon fiber,
this local club maker...
is sticking with wood.
Hamish Steedman runs
a unique workshop,
St. Andrews Golf Company.
It's the only traditional
golf club maker left on Earth.
And surprisingly, the only club
maker at all left in Scotland.
We're very conscious that we are
the last club maker in Scotland.
And very passionate about
keeping that history alive.
The company's roots
trace back to 1881,
but some of their clubs,
like this Long Nose Spoon,
go back even further.
This club would have been used
from the start of golf,
effectively.
True to tradition,
the clubs around here
begin as a block of wood.
With the Long Nose Clubs,
there's really a sort of
beechwood that they used,
which was a softer wood.
The putter heads we manufacture,
that's a maple wood.
With the rough shapes cut out,
the smaller chunks
go into a special lathe.
Tracing a stainless steel
master copy,
the lathes turn the wooden
heads down to exact dimensions.
Every club is made to play.
So, accuracy is everything.
Just as important as shape...
is weight.
Molten lead is used
to bring each head up to spec.
Every head is weighed
and meets a tolerance level.
Soon, the club head
is ready to meet the shaft.
For this, the team still
uses hickory wood.
One of the reasons
they used hickory
was because it was quite
a straight grain,
and it's quite a strong club
that had a good flex.
Even the best materials
rely on skilled craftsmen
to put them together.
Around here,
that's taken very seriously.
A new club maker,
to come into the business,
it'll probably take him a couple
of years to be left alone
to actually craft a craft
from start to finish.
They are artisans,
there's no doubt about that.
Although
the materials have changed,
when it came to hitting a ball
in the olden days,
the same physics still applied.
Modern clubs, with their
oversized sweet spots,
are a lot more forgiving.
And golf balls have become
far more springy
and aerodynamic
over the centuries.
But according to Hamish,
club performance hasn't
actually improved that much.
That was a theory
we had to see to believe.
Stepping into the company's
golf simulator room,
it's time to do some good ole
How Tech Works-style testing.
What we're going to do today,
have a bit of fun,
and we're going to compare
the three different golf clubs.
From the Modern club,
going right back to your
Long Nose from the 1880 period,
just to compare
the distances and performance
and see just how similar
these clubs really are.
So, I've got Grant here
who's going to be my
specialist club hitter.
Let's start
with the modern club.
So, this is your Driver
with the 460 CC head.
That was a great shot, Grant.
Straight up the middle.
278 yards.
Now we move onto our Brassy,
which is a 1920s club.
Another great strike.
269 yards.
Now we move back to our
Long Nose club from the 1880s.
So, let's see how
we get on with this one.
Again,
three great strikes in a row.
262 yards with our Long Nose
from the 1880s.
It's interesting to see that
there's very little difference
with the three different clubs.
This really does show
that it's the golf ball
that's taking the distance.
It's not really the golf club.
As the leather grip
winds into place,
one more club
is ready for the links.
A beautiful and functional
piece of craft work.
After 130 years in the business,
the team
at St. Andrews Golf Company
is definitely keeping the
ancient history of golf alive.
Coming up on How Tech Works...
Inflatable robots?
All in a day's work at Otherlab!
And...
Go!
It's called horse boarding
and you saw it here first!
Welcome back to How Tech Works.
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I'm Basil Singer.
Now, as far
as cool science jobs go,
it's true, mine is near
the top of the list.
But I have to admit,
the research and development
company in this next story
makes a day at the office
seem more like...
Well, a day at the fun fair.
It's called Otherlab,
and yes,
it lives up to its name.
Have a look.
Despite appearances,
this team is not actually
messing about.
This is business as usual
for the staff at Otherlab.
What pressure
are you operating at?
I'm operating at 10 PSA.
Part laboratory,
part workshop,
Otherlab's goal
is pretty ambitious.
We want to solve every problem
in the energy space.
Taking on
big problems like that
takes big brains.
All kinds of them.
Most of the people
that work here have degrees
across varying specialties.
Everything from art
and graphic design,
comic book art
to mechanical engineering,
controls theory,
applied physics,
mathematics, simulation,
computer science,
software engineering.
Meet Ant Roach.
It's massive!
And it only weighs about 32 kg.
Ant Roach can support almost
15 times that weight, though.
We're trying to see, just...
can we make an inflatable robot?
Basically, that moves
and does interesting things.
The strength
of inflatable robots like this
is pretty amazing,
given that it's made of fabric.
Of course,
that's super strong fabric!
We have all these options,
and we're not constrained by
the mechanical gearing system.
So, we can use hydraulics,
we can use pneumatics.
Then, we can basically make
very light-weight structures
that move in many, many ways.
Because textiles
are so flexible,
they can make all kinds
of interesting shapes.
Unlike more traditional robots,
inflatable ones
are a lot cheaper.
The materials cost
for this arm alone
is probably only
on the order of $20.
Getting Ant Roach to walk
requires a few connections.
This thing has 28
different degrees of freedom.
Which basically means
it has 28 different actuators.
And each single actuator has
to have its own operated valve.
Every air flow has to have
a little valve that operates it,
which has an electrical signal
that operates that valve,
which traces back
to a little central computer
that controls it.
And then we have
the wireless link
to a main computer.
Inflating and deflating
the actuators is like
contracting a muscle.
The result is an inflatable
robot that can walk, turn,
and stick its nose into things.
For a large class
of engineering problems,
the solutions have tended
to be rigid, heavy structures
when there was really no reason
for it other than convention.
Otherlab hopes
that breathing life
into robotics
will make a huge difference.
We're investigating
everything from
explosives removal
to lightweight locomotion,
to human-safe orthotics
to augment people
with physical impairments.
In the meantime,
they're just enjoying the ride.
Our last story doth
harken back to a time
when horses were ridden into war
by knights in shining armor.
More recently,
there's a group of competitors
who still need
to don their armor
when it comes time
to go into battle.
The only difference is
these knights
are on shining skateboards!
If it sounds weird
and a little bit wild...
that's because it is!
So, take a good look at what
one day may be an Olympic sport.
It's called horse boarding.
In Malvern, England,
today is the biggest
race day of the season.
Horse and rider teams
have come from across
the country to compete.
But this isn't
your typical horse race.
Go!
This is horse boarding.
It's adrenaline.
It's the simplest way
of describing it.
It's a pure adrenaline rush.
It's a brand new extreme sport,
and if you're anything
like us here at How Tech Works,
you're probably wondering
one thing...
Horse boarding?
Um, what's that?
Daniel Fowler-Prime
is one of the best
in this sport.
He's also its creator.
Today, he's got the national
championship trophy on his mind.
We have some new teams,
we were finding our feet
in the last competition,
so, we'll see,
there should be some good races.
It all started
about five years ago
When Daniel decided
to mix his day job
as a professional trick rider
with his love of board sports.
It was like, "Can we tie
it to the back of a horse?"
Ready!
And then we started
experimenting from there
as to what can be done and what
the application of it would be.
Five years on,
the sport has
a country-wide following
and its own national
race circuit
where teams go head to head
on a 100m drag strip!
So what do you need to play?
If you want to start
horse boarding,
the first thing you're
going to need is a board.
Now, we use
Off-Road mountain boards.
These have got
pneumatic tires on them.
And toe straps.
No heel straps.
So that you can get your feet
in and out of the board quickly.
If we flip the board over,
we use the skate truck,
and we put hard
compound rubbers in here
as opposed to the soft
or medium compound rubbers,
so that at high speeds,
it's not as twitchy
as it could be.
For the tow rope,
a standard wakeboard
handle is used.
A special quick-release clip
allows the horse rider
to detach it from
the saddle in a hurry.
Finally, there's the padding.
To Daniel, that's the most
important piece of kit.
When it comes to race day,
you strap yourself in knowing
that you're going to crash.
The question is how controlled
that crash is going to be,
and hopefully,
it's over the finish line.
To avoid a crash,
the best skill
you can have is balance.
Go, go, go!
You've got to be able
to recover the board
when you get bent
into awkward positions
as the acceleration is so fast.
Let him go, go on!
At speeds close to 14 mph,
communication is also key.
The board rider is the driver,
But the horse rider
is the controls.
So, the board rider tells
the horse rider
what to do with the horse
and where to go.
OK, release!
But to win races,
all that means nothing
without a good horse.
In a competition sense,
the most important thing that's
going to make a team good or bad
is the consistency of the horse.
You've got to have a good horse
that's steady in the box.
Go, go!
Go on!
After years of stunt riding,
Daniel's horse, Rohan,
is as steady as it gets.
Together,
they go by the name 'I-Horse'.
To stay on top,
even they need to practice,
and time is running out.
Ladies and gentleman,
welcome to the National Horse
Boarding Championships, 2011!
Today has been
an interesting competition.
In first place at the moment,
we have I-Horse with 89 points.
They're going to get through
to the knock-out finals.
And it's anyone games
when it gets to there.
What do you think
about that, Andy?
I think they're
going to win it, Tom.
We've got four points each,
haven't we?
You've got... what?
Four points,
I've got four points.
It's sudden death!
In the final race
of the weekend,
It's I-Horse
vs. Perfectly Frank,
the biggest and strongest horse
in the competition.
This isn't going to be easy.
Go!
Right from
the starting block,
this race is a dead heat!
As the riders
cross the finish...
It's hard to tell
who actually won.
Then...
the judges make their call.
Yeah!
That is Perfectly Frank
in first place
on the 2011 National Horse
Boarding Championship!
As the season comes
to a close,
there is some disappointment
for Daniel in his own defeat.
As for the sport he created,
he's certain it's a winner.
The future of the sport,
we're looking for nothing less
than world championships.
Next year,
there's going to be competitions
in at least France,
England, and Scotland.
And this is
the very tip of the iceberg.
Yeah,
we haven't even started yet.
You've been watching
How Tech Works.
I'm Basil Singer,
and I'll see you next time.