Episode 2 Richard Hammond's Blast Lab

-Hello!

-ALARM SOUNDS

Oh, new security system. It must be my mobile phone in the sensors.

-Right, thank you. Oh!

-ALARM SOUNDS

Do I have to take everything out of my pockets? Hang on...

Could be that.

ALARM SOUNDS

I hate it when you have to just keep removing everything...

Maybe that, always be safe. OK.

ALARM SOUNDS

Look, I'm running out of things. I have nothing else in my pockets

to get through security into my own lab, unless,

hang on, I left this in last night.

Sorry. I forgot to take that out, thought I had.

Right.

Thank you. Hello, I'm Richard Hammond, this is my Blast Lab.

Now, I have invited two teams of scientists into my lab

to take part in a series of top-level scientific challenges.

If they are successful, they will win prizes.

If they are unsuccessful,

they'll win prizes but they'll have to blow them all up.

Let's have a look at what's in store.

It is, of course, essential

that my top secret underground lab is guarded constantly,

which is why I have a team of top flight SAS guards permanently here.

But they're not here today sadly.

It turns out it's an SAS Bank Holiday

and they don't work on Bank Holidays.

But it's OK because I have replaced them today with a woman

who made Bruce Lee cry, she is my Ninja Nan.

Ninja Nan, thank you for standing in.

I know she looks fragile. She is in fact a fully-trained ninja.

There you go, I told you.

Ninja Nan, if you'd like to take your...

Oh, she's also quite deaf. Ninja Nan! Ninja Nan! Thank you.

Take your place in security and guard us all.

There she goes, look at her move.

Speed. It's quite deceptive I know.

She looks slow, but she's really shifting.

Ninja Nan, are you in security?

There she is, there, moving with ninja speed,

pulling her little tartan ninja shopping trolley.

Settling in, good to have her there. Oh, good grief.

Oh, you see, she is Green-Fingered Nan, really.

She beat everyone at last month's vegetable growing competition.

She didn't win. That's why she beat everyone.

Let's leave her to get settled in.

Let's meet the bunch of people trying to get into my lab today.

CHEERING

Now, you claim to be the Yellow Team, yeah.

We can't just take your word for it and let anybody in here.

So, for security purposes, I need to check your names off.

-Identify yourselves by name, please.

-Lydia.

-Nadia.

-Maddy.

-Lydia, Nadia, Maddy, that checks out.

Now. Nadia, it says here for the hidden talent under your name,

playing the harmonica, can you?

-Yeah.

-Prove it.

SHE PLAYS TUNE OF WHEN THE SAINTS GO MARCHING IN

I don't feel an album coming on but that was an harmonica being played.

You're cleared through security, come on in!

Sorry about the security checks, Yellow Team.

Can't be too careful. Too many people trying to get in here.

Where have you come from?

Bolton and we are Hammy's Heroes! Whoo!

You've got your own team name and it's like a compliment to me.

It makes no difference because you are Yellow Team.

OK. Let's meet the people claiming to be the Red Team.

Let's have a look at you.

You say you are the Red Team.

Identify yourselves by names, please, so I can check, you are?

-Archie.

-Christy.

-Michael.

Archie, Christy and Michael. Yeah, that checks out.

Under hidden talent, Michael, it says you are top three junior

in table tennis in Northern Ireland.

I'd say by those skills... Yeah, I'd say you probably are.

Right, you're cleared through security. Come in.

Hello, Red Team, where are you from?

We are from Northern Ireland and we are the business!

No, you're not, you're the Red Team. I'll tell you something.

We're in a boys' team, girls' team situation,

which generally means the competition

is quite high and fierce. Well, good luck, both teams.

Get settled in, please, we are about to play Round One.

Boys and girls, that always means some competition.

I'd like you to meet a good friend of mine, he's the lab technician with the faulty ignition, Oliver.

CHEERING

Oliver is of course fitted with

the very latest state-of-the-art fact nav.

I actually fitted it myself. In fact, I told Ninja Nan

it was so easy to do, I could fit it with one arm tied behind my back.

I couldn't, and as a result, well, it doesn't work very well.

A lot of the facts are not correct,

so I need our two teams to tell me which is which.

Once they've told me whether they think

their science fact is true or false, Oliver will tell us if it really is.

-If it's true he'll do this...

-CAR BEEPS, ALARM SOUNDS TUNEFULLY

-And if it's false he'll do this...

-HORN SOUNDS GLUMLY

OK, Yellow Team, Red Team, your first chance to earn some points.

Reds, you go first, tell me whether this is true or false.

The sun is five times hotter than a lightning bolt.

Is that true or false? Have a chat, a think.

Audience, what do you think, is that true or false?

AUDIENCE: True!

I'd say pretty overwhelming response from the audience, there,

saying it's true. But, team, what do you reckon?

-False.

-You think it's false. Oliver, is it true or false?

-HORN SOUNDS GLUMLY

-It is false.

That's a point for the Red Team.

CHEERING

In actual fact, a lightning bolt is five times hotter than the sun

and the surface of the sun is over 5,500 degrees Celsius,

which is pretty toasty.

Right, Yellows, your science fact,

here it is, tell me whether this is true or false.

A teaspoon of a neutron star would weigh over 100 million tonnes.

Have a think. Audience, is that true or false, what do we think?

AUDIENCE: True!

Quite a lot here saying true.

Quite a lot said false

and changed it to say true when the people next to them said true.

So, I think this one maybe has stumped the audience a little bit.

-Yellow Team, what do you think, true or false?

-True.

-You think true.

Oliver, is it true or is it false?

-HORNS AND ALARM SOUND EXCITEDLY

-It is true, a point for Yellow Team.

CHEERING

So, we're on one point each.

Amazingly that is equivalent to, and you'll have worked this out,

I know, 12 and a half million double-decker buses.

Neutron stars are born when large stars finish burning

their nuclear fuel and they undergo a supernova explosion,

which is basically a really big one.

And it all sort of collapses in and weighs a very, very great deal.

Third question, an actual question,

I don't want true or false answers. I want an actual answer.

Write it down, please. Both teams here comes your question.

Atoms are everywhere

but how many could you fit on a full stop?

Have a think, have a chat.

Audience, anybody got any theories on this? What do we think?

I am going to talk to you using this.

You've probably noticed, looks like a traffic cone

but it's actually a microphone as well.

It's cunningly hidden, it's a micro-cone. OK.

Let's see if it works.

What do you reckon, how many?

-Seven.

-You think seven atoms, any difference from there.

About 13.

That's a very precise answer. Why 13?

-Because it looks a bit like the same.

-OK.

It looks like you could get 13 atoms on a full stop, fair enough.

-How many atoms on a full stop?

-Three or four.

-17.

-17. Some very precise answers from the audience.

Admirable. Right, let's see, then,

what our teams think because they are the ones playing for points.

I shall put the new Blast Lab micro-cone on the step there.

Sweep the world, that will.

Have you come up with an answer? Yes, you've both got an answer.

Turn those answers round so we can all look.

For the Reds, we've got a million.

We've got up quite a lot in the numbers. Yellows, we've got 250.

The actual answer

is ten million atoms on a full stop.

Ten million, which means the Red Team takes the point. Well done.

People used to think atoms were the smallest thing on Earth

until they split one. Not by accident,

they didn't drop it, they split it deliberately

and found protons, neutrons and electrons inside.

OK, the score now is 2 - 1 to the Reds.

CHEERING

That's all to come, but now it's time for Mini Science.

This is a round where our teams will conduct

their own scientific experiments

and to help us do that we need my old science teacher, Mini Miss.

Richard, will your mum and day be coming to parents' evening tonight?

No, miss, I forgot to take the letter home, sorry.

-You forgot.

-Yes, miss.

Tell me, Richard, did you also "forget" how to transport

a 65-year-old science teacher through time

without her ending up like a 10-year-old girl.

Yes, miss, I forgot that as well. I'm sorry.

It won't happen again. What experiment are we doing today?

Today we are looking at water.

Although you can swim easily through it, it is actually quite heavy.

In this game the teams have to guess the weight of a lab rat and Ninja Nan

in relation to water-filled bottles.

How will they do that and does it have anything to do

with the enormous set of weighing scales just behind you?

Well, Nan and the lab rat must get on the scales separately,

and the teams have to guess how many bottles of water they weigh.

One team will guess the lab rat's weight,

and the other will guess Ninja Nan's.

After the teams have guessed

the lab rats will put the water on the scales.

The team with the closest guess wins the games.

So this is all about how heavy water is and trying to use it

to guess the weight of lab rat or Ninja Nan and balance them out.

There's a few important points here. Red Team, you're ahead.

So, you get two choices.

Firstly, you get to decide

who you want to try and balance out using water

on the scales, lab rat or Ninja Nan.

-Ninja Nan.

-Ninja Nan.

-The second choice is whether you want to go first or second.

-Second.

You want to go second. Red Team, you can clear off to security, please.

A lab rat there will look after you

and make sure you can't hear or see what's going on.

We have a lab rat on the scales ready, Yellow team, for you to do

the balancing. I am going to give you some time

to have a little talk amongst yourselves

and choose which size of bottles and how many you want to use, OK.

Water is the only substance on Earth that occurs naturally

in all three states. It can solid as ice, it can be a liquid as water,

or it can be gas as steam, and it's also surprisingly heavy.

Every litre of it weighs a kilogram.

Of course, I forgot to tell our teams that,

but then they'll work it out, I don't doubt.

And when it comes to weight, mass and weight are not the same thing,

because your mass is always the same but you weigh differently

depending on gravitational pull.

So, if you stood at the top of Mount Everest

where the Earth's gravitational pull isn't as strong as at sea level,

you would weigh less than if you weighed yourself at the seaside.

Hopefully our Red Team will be being kept entertained in security.

I have a nasty suspicion that the lab rat looking after them in there,

is going to keep them entertained

with their favourite pastime of watching the security cameras.

Their particular favourite is the one that looks at the waterwheel.

Yellows, how are we doing?

-We want four 90-litre bottles.

-19.

-19!

Four 19-litre bottles, OK.

-Four of the big ones.

-Two medium bottles, two litres.

-Two medium ones, OK.

-And two one-litre bottles.

Lab rats, can we load those in, please?

That's four of the really big ones. Two medium sized, two-litre ones.

And two of the small.

Lab rats, if you can load them up. Let's see, he hasn't moved yet.

Right, is that everything?

Take your feet right off the ground please, lab rat.

We're not... I don't think...

We're not quite there, but that looks to me to be pretty close.

Now, I can tell you that you put 82 litres of water on.

Now, that equates to 82 kilograms

and our lab rat weighs 87 kilograms

so you're only five kilograms off.

That was pretty close, if you ask me.

So, that's how the Yellow Team has done. Now we have to find out

whether the Red Team can beat that.

If they get closer to the weight of Ninja Nan, they get the point.

If they are further away, you get the point, Yellows.

Let's get rid of lab rat and all of these bottles.

Let's have the Red Team back in the Blast Lab.

Welcome back, Reds. OK, now you are going to be balancing Ninja Nan.

So, lab rat, if you'd like to get off,

Ninja Nan, if you wouldn't mind please taking his place.

Reds, you've got some time to think

how many bottles and which size you want to use to balance Ninja Nan.

All right, get on, have a chat. Have a chat, work it out.

OK, Reds, you look to have come to a decision pretty quickly.

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

-What are you going to go for then?

-Two 19 litres and ten two litres.

-Two 19s and ten two litres.

Lab rats, did you hear that? let's load it up, please.

Two 19s. Ten two litres.

Oh, lift off is happening. And I think...

Oh! Look, she was balancing.

Oh, I can tell you that's because you put on

58 litres of water which equates to 58 kilos.

Ninja Nan weighs 54.

So, you were just four over which was very, very close.

If we take those two off, we will see Ninja Nan balanced perfectly.

Obviously, she's used to that.

As a ninja, her balance is naturally perfect.

There we go, look at that. And that means, Reds, you were closest.

You take the point. Round of applause for Red Team.

Both teams getting really a lot closer than I expected there.

That was impressive stuff. Water is surprisingly heavy,

So, I wonder what would happen if instead of piling it carefully

like we did there, you dropped it

from very, very, very high up on to something.

So, it would appear that water is pretty powerful stuff.

And, it would follow then that the more water you've got,

the more powerful it is.

But how can it hurt anything? It goes against your instincts.

I mean, it's just water. That doesn't hurt.

It's just floppy.

Well, it may feel floppy but science says it can be dangerous.

If water is dropped from a height it will keep on accelerating

until its going, well, really, really quickly.

The greater the speed and the larger the water

then the bigger the force when it finally hits something.

Right, you...out, please.

Go on. Out. I need your car. Go.

Thank you very much. This will do perfectly well.

We're going to need more water, a bigger bag. That will be perfect.

Don't worry, it will be fine.

This is a perfect car for this experiment, Granada.

This is the GL model, a lot of safety features on here,

not sure if this is what they had in mind when they designed it.

Let's see. Right, get that in position over this.

This should be good.

OK, take it up. Excellent.

I am looking forward to seeing this. I'm keen to know what it does.

Stop looking so miserable.

It will be fine. Don't worry.

That's a ton of water.

And instinct tells you it's just going to be a splash,

and not do any damage, but it should be quite an impact probably.

I mean, your car will be fine.

Don't worry about that. It'll be fine.

OK, that's as high as it will go.

Look at that, a ton of water.

What? Don't look miserable.

This is science going on, good use of your car.

It'll be fine, it'll be fine.

Right, three, two, one. Drop.

Hold the experiment right there, because...

because, teams, there's another point in this.

The score now is 3-1 to the Reds. Yellows, you need this point.

I'll give the point to the team

that can describe most accurately what will happen.

Reds, what's your theory, what do you think will happen?

We think the water will just come on and damage the top of the car.

-And get wet.

-A bit of damage and the car will get wet,

I think that will happen. Yellows?

Because it's so high up, it will fall down at maybe 60mph,

so it can, like, reach its full velocity

and then turn into a solid and smash the roof of the car.

So, you think it will smash the roof of the car,

but you think...

Just damage the top of the car.

OK, so damage the top of the car,

more damage over here from the Yellows.

OK, well, I think that's fairly clear.

We'll be able to judge for ourselves who's the closest

because we are going to see exactly what does happen.

Three, two, one, drop!

It'll be fine, don't worry.

It's not... Yeah. Wow!

Wow, you see the power of water in action, look at that!

The doors are bent, the chassis's bent,

windscreen's gone, the roof's gone.

That's... It didn't even splash.

It just smashed it. What?

Most of that we'll polish out. That's science, that is.

We learnt, we felt the benefit.

You've got some rust there you want to work on.

CHEERING

I think the expressions in here told us the whole story.

Reds, you're not even going to claim that point, are you?

It can only go to the Yellows. Well done.

That means the scores are 3 - 2.

CHEERING

Who'd have thought, eh?

Just a bag of water, really spoiled that lab rat's car. Whoops.

Time now for both our teams to go off and get ready

for The Messy Messy Mess Test. Away you go

because you'll need protective suits. Off you go and get changed.

And while they're doing that,

audience, I thought that was quite impressive.

Anybody want to see it again? Who'd like to see that again?

So would I, let's have a look at that again.

-APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

-Just a bag of water, that's all.

Who'd have thought? He was quite cross, if you were wondering.

Well done to everyone in the audience

who said the damage would be substantial

because it was as it turned out.

OK, it's time for us all to move on because now it's time for The Messy Messy Mess Test,

Which today is the Bridge Of Destiny.

GROWLING DEEP VOICE: The Bridge Of Destiny.

Your prizes, like an MP3 player, a planetarium,

a kitchen chemistry set,

all need teams to be transported across this tank

full of lethal toxic gunge.

If they fall in, they're useless, obviously, because they'll melt.

To do this, you'll need to construct your very own Bridge Of Destiny.

GROWLING DEEP VOICE: The Bridge Of Destiny.

To move them from one side to the other.

Now, all the bits you need are all in the tank with you

and hopefully that is all that's in the tank with you.

I think I got all the vicious eels out last night,

but they do breed quite quickly,

so just watch your fingers in there.

You need to burrow about in this lethal toxic gunge

and find the pieces you need to assemble your bridge

before your precious prizes end up forever in the yawning chasm

below your Bridge Of Destiny.

GROWLING DEEP VOICE: The Bridge Of Destiny.

CRASHING

Crikey. As soon as you've finished your bridge, pull the lever.

Reds, you pull that one, Yellows, that one, to release your car

towing your truck full of prize pods.

Red Team, you will start first because you have the most points

so they've bought you a five-second advantage.

When you hear the first siren, you start. Yellows, you wait.

The second you hear the second siren, get on with it.

OK. Everybody knows what they've got to do.

This is a straight race across the tanks. That race starts...

..now.

And the Reds are off and making good use of their head start.

Now, there's the second siren and the Yellows will have to hurry

to catch the Reds.

It does look like hard work wading through all that gunge.

The Reds are flying ahead now.

The Yellows looking more than a little confused.

Come on, Yellows.

Oh, and the Yellows dropping pieces of their bridge in the gunge, now.

The Reds look to have some sort of system in place.

Whilst the Yellows...well, your guess is as good as mine.

They just can't seem to find the pieces they are after.

Frantic construction on both sides of the tank.

With the Yellows finally making some headway

but is it going to be too little too late for the Yellows?

As the Reds force the last piece of their bridge into place,

they are reaching for the lever. And there goes the Red wagon.

It's going to be the Reds by a mile or at least by five metres.

A convincing win by the Reds, there.

Well, quite clearly that was a win for the Red team.

CHEERING

Let's look what they've won.

Ready, Nan? Each of you will be taking home an MP3 player...

..a planetarium...

..a marine copter...

..an electromagnetic kit...

..a kitchen chemistry set...

..and a 20 Questions game.

For each of the Red Team.

Yellows, here's the amazing thing, the big coincidence,

because you would have won exactly the same.

Instead of taking them home,

unfortunately you've got to blow them up,

because it's time for Bidet Goes Bang.

So, here we all are once again. Red Team, how are we all feeling?

-Brilliant.

-Pretty good? Yeah.

-Satisfied.

-Behind you a huge wheelbarrow full of prizes

you will be taking home. That's a nice feeling.

Here's an example of perhaps a less nice feeling.

Yellow team how are you feeling?

Kind of bad but good because we get to blow things up.

You're looking forward to this. Good for you.

What went wrong in that last game? Why didn't you win?

We didn't think that five seconds was that long but obviously it was.

Getting those points early on makes a difference and they were quick.

Well, there we go.

You've heard of the big bang theory well, this is my big bang bidet.

They both work in the same way, well, they both go bang.

So, there's no putting it off.

-Who's doing the plunger?

-We all are.

-Share the blame.

I think that's best. Lift the plunger up into the firing position.

Thank you. Don't plunge it yet.

Right, I'm going to give you a countdown.

DEEP VOICE AND AUDIENCE TOGETHER: Five, four, three, two, one.

That did it. Unfortunately, it's now time to say goodbye.

We've been learning all about the weight of liquids today.

And it's the closest my lab rats have got to water in a long time.

Bath night tonight, I reckon.

-See you very soon.

-CHEERING

Blast Lab was recorded in front of a live studio audience.

Probably no lab rats were hurt... too badly during filming.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

E-mail [email protected]