Alignex Mechanical Division Sales & Marketing Blog

More SolidWorks used on the Discovery Channel by Mike Bailey

In an earlier blog post, I mentioned how much of a fan I am of The Learning Channel family of networks, especially, the Discovery Channel and the Science Channel. I also mentioned that a new program, Invent This! gave SolidWorks a plug as a tool they use regularly. You can read that blog post here.

Now, a second Discovery Channel show has made a SolidWorks mention. This season on Mythbusters, in an Episode titled "Seesaw Saga", they needed to create a rig that could withstand a great deal of force transfer and couldn't rely on trial and error to get it right. They also didn't want to have to "overbuild" the rid which would waste a lot of time and materials. Their solution, use SolidWorks and SolidWorks Simulation to create a design and test it virtually to make sure it would work before creating the prototype.

Let me setup the scene for you. They myth they were testing was an internet rumor that a skydiver who's parachute had failed was trying to find a "soft" place to land. He spotted a girl sitting alone on a seesaw and steered himself for the opposite end hoping her weight would cushion his fall. The myth goes that he launched her straight up 7 stories to the top of a nearby building where she landed unharmed.

The Mythbuster's task was to test to see if the launch height could be achieved with that much force exerted as well as whether the action was fatal to the girl or the skydiver. Their rig was to hoist a weight equal to that of a person at the end of a massive bungie cord and stretch it so that the weight would be fired back at the ground at the same speed and force at the terminal velocity of a free-falling skydiver. The other major challenge was to create a teeter-totter that would be sure to transfer all of the energy from that impact to the crash-dummy little girl stimulant at the other end without failing by getting crushed in the impact.

This first clip is the SolidWorks mention within the show.

The actual test clips can be seen with the link below on the Discovery Channel Website.  There are some pretty impressive angles to the experiment. I highly recommend watching as many as you can.

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/mythbusters-seesaw-saga/

Anyway, a big Thank You to Mythbusters for their mention of SolidWorks. Keep up the great work and thanks for making such an entertaining, yet educational show. I know they are friends of the company since their appearance at SolidWorks World a few years ago. (Also viewable on YouTube, but I'll let you search for those clips yourself.) Now, my 5 year old son watches with me. Who knows, maybe one day he'll be the one engineering parts and assemblies and making his retired Marketing Manager of a dad proud.