A new Discovery Channel show titled Prototype This! will debut on October 15, 2008. Hoping to capture the same demographic as Mythbusters‘ audience, the show is about designing and creating robots, gadgets, and other things that nerds will love. Prototype This! is hosted by four wide-ranging experts: [Zoz Brooks], who’s got a PhD in robotics, [Mike North], who also has a PhD, in material sciences, [Terry Sandin], a special effects veteran of the Hollywood film industry, and [Joe Grand], who we’ve covered recently for his Defcon badge work. [Daniel Terdiman]’s glimpse behind the scenes reveals some interesting projects, from a stair-climbing robot to the creation of a pyro pack. We’ll be sure to set our DVRs to record.
[via Zero Day]
This looks like it might be good. I hope that it bumps Smash Lab off the air as that show is absolutely horrible.
It is great to see some potential in computer shows that hopefully are more about the tech than marketing, branding and child of those pair which is vendor lockin.
Will be watching critically,
Brotherred
While I love the idea of this, I just have the feeling they’ll make it as bad as Myth Busters.
Or does someone know where to find a version of myth busters without the repetition. I know it’d only be 15 minutes long but that is okay.
Mythbusters is telepathic brain surgery compared to Smash Lab. Considering those guys are sitting on their prototype for a perpetual water slide, i’m guessing it’s going to be just as bad as Smash Lab, though I am hoping not.
Keep it up Discovery channel, you’re one of only a handful of channels worth anything on TV these days
Smash Lab seemed like a really bad excuse to make a show about just blowing stuff up, they present real world situations, then propose a completely impractical solution. Mythbusters was good until recently when it seemed like they just ran out of ideas, but still: http://xkcd.com/397/. I really hope this is better.
Looks like someone went and pulled 4 employees from the marketing department at boring inc. and put them in a profitable network demographic magnet.
This will mostly be interesting to boring suburban types much as makezine is.
This is related to CDC. Anything related to CDC is as lame as it gets.
This is related to CDC. Anything related to CDC is as lame as it gets.
excellent! Don’t know the other guys but Zoz was my floor tutor at MIT. He had some cool toys including this ‘instant’ 2 liter bottle pressure bomb stick thing. Basically a compressor hooked up to a long steel tube with a blast shield. Compressor pumps up the 2 liter to some ridiculous pressure and a trigger fires a servo which stabs an exacto blade into the 2 liter bottle. Boom! Something akin to filling a bottle with LN2 or dry ice but on demand. Cool guy, cool toys. Good luck Zoz & company!
I dont get why your all hating on mythbusters. at least they bring a joy of science to the masses, sure in an entertainment-somtimes-braindead package, but thats not always a bad thing. at least it gets people interested in science.
I have high hopes for this show… but having read the stuff about it taking 6 takes to get a ‘genuine’ reaction erks me a little. mythbusters do the same afaik.
all I care is if they present cool stuff in a relatively highbrow way, if they skim over the science too much like mythbusters im outtahear. theres already enough geeks with toys shows out there.
Ok, so sure, Mythbusters has jumped the shark, this could be the show to pick up the “flagship program” torch. Yes, I really do think Mythbusters is a flagship program. After all, if it wasn’t, who would dump so much money into a show that’s obviously jumped the shark?! In their defense, I’m sure it’s not Adam and Jaime’s faults. There are only so many myths.
this better not be another ‘smash labs’.. uggh
i proud of this to start a new thing which will give us fatefull information regarding to robots.
iam parsuing BE (I.T) so it is very intrested thing for me.iam only says that BEST OF LUCK.
I have to agree with the other commentators here. I like Mythbusters, but the repetition they do surrounding commercials is ridiculous. You’d think the audience had the attention span of a fruit fly.
Smash Lab is awful. In concept, it’s a great show, but the solutions they come up with are horribly impractical. If you watched the most recent show, they put bilge pumps inside a car to keep it from sinking! It was explained like there was some need to install bilge pumps in every car on the road because … you know … people drive into lakes and the ocean compulsively on a whim …. even if they aren’t near water! LOL. Who comes up with this crap? That show is officially off of my Tivo after that last episode.
Let’s hope this show is better than that.