Episode 120 – Seesaw Saga
- Original airdate: May 20, 2009
Adam, Jamie, and the Build Team joined forces to investigate a puzzling seesaw myth. This is the second myth in which the Mythbusters and the Build Team bust a myth together
| Myth statement | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| A skydiver whose parachute fails to open can hit the high end of a playground seesaw, landing on his feet, and launch a child on the low end safely up to the roof of a 7-story building. | Busted | Adam and Jamie constructed a steel seesaw and placed a dummy on one end whose weight matched that of an average 6-year-old girl. To approximate the effect of a skydiver hitting the high end at terminal velocity, they calculated the proper combination of weight and height and dropped several water-filled barrels. The impact crushed the seesaw, ruptured the barrels, and launched the dummy to a height of 20 feet (6 m).
The Build Team was brought in to determine the terminal velocity, based on one specific type of skydiving suit and the diver's body position. From several jumps, they determined that the diver could reach a maximum speed of 122 miles per hour (196 km/h) in a vertical position. Meanwhile, Adam and Jamie designed and built a seesaw that could effectively deliver the energy of the falling skydiver to the girl without buckling. Adam did some small-scale tests to correlate drop height and maximum launch height, and also to follow the girl's trajectory in the air. Next, the Build Team did some bungee jumping to find a way to accelerate the diver to terminal velocity without having to drop him from several hundred feet up. Their solution: attach the ends of a heavy-duty bungee cord to the diver and the ground, haul the diver up using a crane, and release him so that the cord would snap him downward at high speed. A wetsuit filled with an alginate/water mixture and dressed in a skydiving suit was used to represent the diver. The team set up the equipment at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, using the heavy-duty bungee cord and a pair of guide wires to make sure the diver dummy would hit the target accurately, and found that they could indeed reach 122 miles per hour. The girl dummy was outfitted with "shock watch" stickers to measure the forces exerted on it, and three drops were carried out. The results:
Based on the need for a super-strong seesaw and the injuries inflicted on the girl, the team declared the myth busted. |
Read more about this topic: Myth Busters (2009 Season)
Famous quotes containing the words episode and/or seesaw:
“The press is no substitute for institutions. It is like the beam of a searchlight that moves restlessly about, bringing one episode and then another out of darkness into vision. Men cannot do the work of the world by this light alone. They cannot govern society by episodes, incidents, and eruptions. It is only when they work by a steady light of their own, that the press, when it is turned upon them, reveals a situation intelligible enough for a popular decision.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“Perhaps if the future existed, concretely and individually, as something that could be discerned by a better brain, the past would not be so seductive: its demands would be balanced by those of the future. Persons might then straddle the middle stretch of the seesaw when considering this or that object. It might be fun.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)