MovieChat Forums > Smash Lab (2007) Discussion > Engineers Against Smash Lab

Engineers Against Smash Lab

posted 16 years ago by heimdalls_horn
10 replies | jump to latest

I am an engineering student and we get together to watch this show every week. We sit around yell at them for never using actual science and just using horribly stupid demos to do something any self-respecting engineer would do on the computer or with something that would model the system much more accurately.

I was really looking forward to this show, as I love mythbusters, but I always wish there was more of a science content in it and I hoped that Smash Lab would provide such an outlet. Now, I sit here, wondering how many calculations actually went into this, rather than lame guess/check methods which waste my time and their time.

I have had the thought that the producers are forcing these lame demos and experiments down the throats of respectable engineers (with the exception of the woman, who could make a free-body diagram of a simple weight force). If this is true, then they shouldn't call themselves engineers, but rather corporate whores who will blindly follow the producers, while laughing in the name of real engineers. Either way, this show gives engineers a bad name.

[–] Kshi2 16 years ago

I agree. Not that I didn't find the show interesting at all but I myself am also an engineering student and I agree with you. And like on ever single episode, whenever they get to where there testing there big device or whatever they made there always like "Oh, this is way heavier than we expected it to be..." or "How are we gonna attach the airbag to the front of the train? Duct tape?" or "We didn't design are release valves right...." and the list goes on and on. It's like they never actually engineer things properly they just kind of guess at it and something always ends up failing then they go: "Well I guess that would make such and such safer and that would work even though are test failed..."

[–] Mad_Monkey 16 years ago

I like how Mythbusters will fail at something but then go to the extreme to see what it would take to make it work.
The Smash Lab "scientists" fail and go "Hmm."
This show is doomed... I didn't have much hope for it since they started running the promos for it. It is everything I thought it would be. Terrible.

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[–] Rational_Skeptic 16 years ago

I agree with heimdalls_horn. It's like they went to a kindergarten class and asked for ideas to problems that aren't even real problems. I mean not even a person who is an engineering major can see that their demos won't work. A basic understanding of high school physics would make the show at least somewhat bearable.

I'm just waiting for one of them to have some sort of crippling industrial accident because of how little they know about the physics involved.

[–] Director-21 16 years ago

Well it is called SMASH Lab. They don't really care about the physics or engineering involved; they just want to blow up some stuff real good. It's like Mythbusters without the science, jokes or interesting personalities.

[–] JimmyScrote 15 years ago

Honestly, the explosions, or "smashings up," aren't even exciting. I almost cried the first, and only, time I watched this.

[–] Barrettm 15 years ago

I'm watching the 'whiteout/snowed in' episode and I gotta say this show is just stupid. Nobody is going to keep a hot air balloon or a jet powered sled in their trunk just in case. They say Mythbusters has 'jumped the shark' but this show did it in the first season.

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[–] rogcbrand 15 years ago

I was just watching the episode where they use parachutes to eject people from a boat before it is involved in a collision. The problem I saw was that in all their tests, the moving boat- and their solutions relied on the boat to be moving at a fairly high speed- would always come through the collision in decent shape and it looked like the occupants would have had a good chance to make it through with little injury, while the stationary boat, where the escape device couldn't work looked like any passengers would have faced serious injury or death.

So, even though the team congratulated themselves on a "successful" test that showed their system worked great, I felt that I'd rather stick with the boat than be jerked out and land in the water! Their solution seemed to be worse than the problem! I've noticed many of the shows follow this pattern. They just seem like some amateurs playing at being scientists and not giving me the slightest confidence in their abilities!

[–] Rett_Mikhal 14 years ago

Their solutions are always worse than the problem. The 'stop a bus' episode.

"I've heard of aerated concrete that looks like concrete and gets destroyed when weight is applied, it could probably slow a bus down."

(They try it, the bus plows through the concrete and into the open traffic, killing dozens of people.)

"Yeah, alright, we did it! It almost worked! Never mind the flying shards of concrete we've added to the disaster!"

Also, here's a question. Why not just DIG A DITCH?!

[–] rogcbrand 14 years ago

Because the obvious, simple solutions would only fill 5 minutes of the show?
LOL! But yeah, you're right! It's just not reasonable to think that these aerated concrete lanes would be put in everywhere, and that's even if it worked perfectly, which it sure didn't!

I love these types of shows, but I expect a fair amount of logic, reality and common sense. Without that it's just a cartoon!

[–] kamas716 14 years ago

Yeah, I agree. I watched a few episodes expecting them to come up with a somewhat reasonable solution to a problem, but all they came up with was stuff that obviously wasn't going to work well, or made the problem worse. If it wasn't for American Idol, this would be the biggest waste of air time on TV.