Popular Mechanics for Kids - Season 4

First aired: 1/7/2001 6 episodes

Episodes

1. X-Treeme Rides

Aired: 1/7/2001

Tyler starts us off when he takes to the skies in a powered parachute plane and then he gets ready for his next adventure on a mountain in Virginia. To play Street Luge, Tyler must wear protective body gear and lay down on a luge board just two inches from the pavement. The speed of the descent depends on the steepness of the hill. Vanessa receives a kite skiing lesson in Oregon, which is similar to water skiing, but the kite stands in for a boat, a kite skier can reach speeds of up to 20 mph using only the power of the wind and a 20 foot kite. Charlie builds an extreme ride by attaching cables between two trees and using a pulley to get your body from one spot to the next.

2. Fighting Disaster

Aired: 1/14/2001

Vanessa travels to Oregon to create a real landslide, and she learns that scientists uses a unique outdoor laboratory to find out more about the patterns of landslides and how to prevent them from destroying the environment. Vanessa down to the coast of Los Angeles where she trains with the Collapse Rescue Team (a group of scientists who save people from such emergencies as collapsed buildings, stalled elevators and vehicle accidents). Tyler gets a chance to see how real life disasters are dealt with when he goes out into the field with a crew of fire researchers and helps them set a room ablaze! By setting these kinds of controlled fires, scientists are able to learn and devise the most powerful fire-fighting technique.

3. Escape

Aired: 1/21/2001

Vanessa catches up with Dean Gunnerson, one of the most famous escape artists in the world while Tyler visits a cockpit of an underwater helicopter and finds out what it's like to be trapped inside something that is slowly sinking to the bottom of a deep pool. He arrives later in Delaware and tries out a life chute designed to rescue people from high rise fires while Charlie shares a few tips on the art of escape.

4. Horseplay

Aired: 1/28/2001

Popular Mechanics for Kids goes behind-the-scenes at the world renowned Strathcona Mounted Troop (the only non-British Cavalry Unit in history to mount the Queen's Life Guard at Buckingham Palace). Tyler participates in the Musical Ride and finds out how the twenty horses are taught to obey the riders instructions, and after, he prepares to enter the world of jousting where he will learn about the history of the sport. He will sport a ten-foot lance, and fit inside a full suit of armour and rides a horse. Vanessa heads west to Alberta's cowboy country where she learns all about the rigors of the range. Wearing authentic cowboy gear, she saddles up with a real cowboy for some calf-roping, cattle herding and lasso tying while Charlie shows us the art and science of throwing a lariot.

5. In Deep Water

Aired: 2/5/2001

Tyler goes underwaterat the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California where he uses a remote-control operated vehicle called a ROV and explores the largest submarine canyon on the continent's West Coast. With deep sea depths reaching more than 10,000 feet, Tyler assists scientists in the search for never-before-seen life forms at the bottom of the ocean floor. Tyler receives a diving suit that weighs a full ton, and after securing his oxygen supply, he accompanies underwater welders. He'll find out how this unique skill is used to repair pipelines, drilling rigs, ships, barges and even nuclear power plants and how some amazing tools can produce enough heat to melt steel even in the icy cold temperatures of the ocean. After all of Tyler's adventures, he goes to Jules's Underwater Sea Lodge, which is a hotel underwater! Built in a lagoon some 30 feet underwater, the Lodge has only four rooms each with its own supply of air sent down from the surface using an umbilical cord

6. On The Front Lines

Aired: 2/12/2001

Tyler joins the Skyhawks, which is Canada's elite parachute team and he gets ready to jump out of a plane at 10,000 feet above the ground. Strapped to the back of one of the Skyhawk jumpers, he will be able to see exactly how these tandem jumps are orchestrated and the special skill it takes to execute such a daring adventure. These parachutists are trained to land these dangerous jumps to get medical personnel into remote areas where help is needed such as avalanches, floods, plane crashes an war zones. Vanessa takes to the skies of California to fly her own fighter plane in a high-speed airborne dog fight! She proves just how daring she can be when she loops, turns and rolls her own plane and then attempts to 'shoot down' an enemy aircraft with high-tech laser beams. Vanessa gets to operate an eight-wheeled army surveillance truck called the Coyote. Able to spy on targets up to thirteen miles away, the Coyote is a state-of-the-art surveillance vehicle used in both military and non-