Bubbling with ideas
C4, 8pm RICHARD Hammond wants to feed the dog while relaxing in the garden. He wants to cook sausages while writing his memoirs. He basically wants to do it all, with as little effort as possible.
In this fun and addictive new format, this leftfield engineering show sees Richard hold a knockout tournament to build chain reaction machines and crazy contraptions linking everyday objects.
Think Wallace & Gromit inventions with a trophy at the end.
Richard says: “Teams of amateur engineers will compete to perform my ordinary chores in extraordinary ways. One will be crowned chain reaction champions.”
Chain reaction machine guru Zach Umperovitch is the expert judge, while Shini Somara fills in the science behind the teams’ eccentric inventions – and they must complete tasks in the most complicated manner possible.
Zach says: “I just love chain reaction machines, the absurd cartoonish nature of them. Some of my machines take weeks or even months to build, but this lot have just three days.”
The Fieldhouse brothers from Somerset and a team from Loughborough University are challenged to build ingenious machines that will allow Richard to straighten his duvet and ‘make the bed’ without leaving the bath tub.
Spending a day in the bathroom, a day on the landing and one in the bedroom, the teams tackle everything from a boot pendulum and a hairdryer on wheels, to a hovering ping-pong ball and a shower curtain that proves to be problematic.
Tense and creative, this might even inspire some home builds.