The teams take a crash course in pre-industrial building techniques, as they compete to build 20-foot bridges—without the aid of power tools, forklifts, or...flushable toilets. It's a show for the (Middle) Ages!
- 1) The Challenge (5:10)
Watch the Show
Bonus Footage
Blue Team's Process
Red Team's Process
- 1) The Challenge (5:10)
- 2) Brainstorm (2:14)
- 3) Design (1:03)
- 4) Build (12:53)
- 5) Test (2:07)
- 6) Judging (4:05)
- 1) What Noah and Natasha Learned (00:37)
- 2) Nate Loses a Shoe (00:25)
- How do you design and build a bridge with "pre-industrial" tools? Blue Team lost the coin toss, so they were forced to build a suspension bridge.
- Their design had two long pieces of rope hanging above the ground across the creek. Smaller ropes hung between the two main suspension cables like U's, which held the footboards.
- Tom and Mike found strong trees where they could anchor the suspension cables while Kim and Krishana made all the suspension ropes needed for the design.
- Rope is remarkably strong, but it really only works in tension. That means, to apply force with a rope you can't push it, you have to pull it!
- One of their anchors, a vertical post buried in a pile of rocks, could have been sturdier but the bridge easily supported the weight of the eight cast members and 2 hosts.The supsension bridge won the challenge.
- How do you design and build a bridge with "pre-industrial" tools? Red team won the coin toss and then chose to build a King Post Truss bridge. A truss is a triangle-shaped frame that's used for support.
- Red Team started by laying out the pattern of one truss on the ground with timber. Then, with chisels and axes, they cut notches in the wood to make strong joints.
- Next they cut up planks to span the width of the bridge. They needed help dragging the large pieces of wood across the water but once there it all fit together like a puzzle.
- Red Team created a large King Post Truss design with diagonal, tension bearing struts. The wooden struts connected to the truss and held the top and bottom parts of the bridge together.
- Red Team's bridge successfully held the weight of all the Squads and two hosts. Unfortunately, it took a large group of people to build it. They could have used much thinner pieces of lumber and the bridge would still have been strong enough.
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