All language subtitles for How.Tech.Works.S02E08.WEBRip.x264-ION10

[narrator] On this episode
of How Tech Works.

Are these swarming robots

on a mission
to take over the world?

And...

watch out! There’s no stopping
this avalanche... or is there?

[intro music]

[upbeat electronic music]

Hello, I’m Basil Singer

and you are in
for a wild ride of a show.

[narrator] We’re going up,
up, and away

in a customized hang glider

Now I hope you’re not squeamish,

because we’re also
going to check out the latest

in creepy crawly robots.

Depending on how you feel

about hundreds
of swarming robots,

our first story may fill you
with hope and possibility...

then again, it might
scare the wits out of you.

You see, these Swarmanoids
are a perfect example

of bits and bytes of technology
uniting for a common good.

Or...

they're the proof that the world
will soon be taken over

by soulless drones.

Watch, and decide for yourself!

[soft mechanical sounds]

[narrator]
Professor Marco Dorigo

is calling out to all wheels,
motors, grips and rotors

to join forces.

His lab specializes
in swarm intelligence,

trying to get robots
to work together

to achieve a common goal.

Marco is the scientific
coordinator of "Swarmanoid".

Swarmanoid is
a particular approach

to swarm robotics,

in which we have a
heterogeneous swarm of robots,

so many robots
of different types.

[narrator]
Unlike typical swarms,

which are made up
of identical robots,

Swarmanoid is more like

one robot divided
into many distinct parts.

We have three types of robots.
One is called "footbot."

[Marco] It is a robot that stays
on the ground and moves around,

it is capable
of transporting objects.

Another one, the "handbot",

is a robot capable
of grasping objects,

but cannot move around,
and it can climb structures.

And the third one, "eyebot,"

is a robot that can fly
and has a good vision system.

[narrator] Time for this
motley crew to report for duty.

Helping to train
the troops is Nithin Mathews.

He’s working to improve
swarm performance.

[Nithin] There is
strength to the group,

so whatever a single robot
is not able to carry out,

can be carried out
in collective fashion.

[narrator] Today they’re trying
to overcome a hill,

which for such disparate parts
might as well be a mountain.

I add the eyebot
into the experiment

and ask the eyebot to help out
the footbots on the ground.

So the footbot can use

the perception of the eyebot
from the air

to carry out certain tasks.

[narrator]
Before any of this can happen

they need a way
of communicating.

Here are three things
you need to know

about speaking Swarmanoid.

First off, every color light
means something.

Green means, “I'm here,
I'm alive, notice me.”

Blue means, “I see you and I’m
ready to take orders."

Red means, "It’s time to execute
the plan or let’s get busy."

[narrator] Unlike Wi-Fi,

lights are a signal that are
easier to locate in space.

Next there’s spinning.

Not only is it good exercise,

but it’s also how they send out
infrared and radio wave signals

to help read distances
between bots.

On top of that,
cameras calculate and relay

another layer of information

and eliminate
a lot of guesswork.

But even though they’ve dealt
with blocks to communication,

they’re still struggling
with that block... in the road.

There’s a hill
kind-of-thing in between,

which a single footbot
cannot cross by itself,

simply because it is
physically not capable to do so.

[narrator] This is where
they go into self-assembly mode

to become a swarmbot!

[Nithin] Footbots, for instance,
are able to self-assemble

and change their shape depending
on what they are supposed to do.

[narrator] Whenever
two or more bots hook up,

that’s what we call
a "swarmbot,"

and teaming up is what
Swarmanoid does best!

[soft electronic music]

[narrator] Great! They have
passed the physical challenge,

now time for the intellectual
challenge of a good book.

[mechanic parts moving]

[narrator] Fast forward,

and this swarmbot game
of hide and seek is destined

for real search and rescue
missions of the future.

We jump now

from the artificial threat
of robot invasion

to the very real threat
of natural disasters,

avalanches.

Avalanches are
extremely difficult to predict,

because the snow of an avalanche
is constantly changing.

Even tiny fluctuations
in the weather

can have huge impacts
on its overall strength.

And that's where the lab
in our next story comes in!

[narrator]
It’s a crisp, clear day

at Montana State University.

But inside this building,
a winter storm is blowing!

[Ed] We built this lab

so we control
the temperature of the sky,

the intensity
of the solar radiation,

the humidity.

We’ll change one and see if
it changes something over here.

Change this, what does it do?

[narrator] The sub-zero lab
is a precisely controlled

cold research environment,

where researchers
can reconstruct

one of nature’s
deadliest weapons...

an avalanche!

The average
over the last 10-15 years

is somewhere
around 26 fatalities.

[explosion in distance]

[narrator] Ed Adams
has been tracking

deadly slides in the US
for over 30 years.

Trigger! Trigger, yes! [exults]

[narrator]
In his younger, wilder days

he made headlines
for putting his instruments,

and himself,
right in the line of fire.

People thought we were
a little crazier than we were.

[narrator] Today, he’s
burying himself in the finer,

microscopic details
of avalanche research.

[Ed] I kind of like to call
the microstructure of snow

sort of a shape shifter.

It keeps changing its shape,

based on the environment
that it’s subjected to.

[narrator] They may be tiny,

but if their shape and structure
are just right,

a thin layer
of snow crystals like this

can take down
a whole mountain.

If you think about them
as being holding the snow up,

with-- and these are
little grains, they fall over,

this whole thing goes down
and it just cascades

through the entire region
and we bring down a whole slope.

[narrator] To investigate
how crystals' shape

affects the strength
of the snow mass,

the team is building
a mini-avalanche inside the lab.

For the next 24 hours,
they blast their snowpack

with a metal halide lamp,
which mimics a bright sun.

They set a refrigerated ceiling
to a frigid minus 50,

which simulates
a cold, cloudless sky.

Beautiful conditions for a skier
today, but tomorrow,

a potentially
major avalanche hazard.

[narrator] Now, because snow
is translucent, on a sunny day,

short-wave solar radiation
penetrates into the snowpack,

which warms it up below.

But when there’s no cloud cover,

the long-wave radiation
that bounces back

escapes from the environment,
and it makes the surface cold.

And this
large temperature difference

in the top few centimeters

causes what’s known as
radiation recrystallization,

which changes the structure
of the surface crystals

into long, slippery,
skinny grains

that just don’t bond together.

That’s not a problem
when it’s on the surface.

It becomes problematic

when we bury it
with another layer.

That weak layer in between
doesn’t allow this bottom layer

to adhere to the top layer.

That tends to be
a very weak structure.

It doesn’t support it very well.
Put it on a slope, it slides.

[narrator] The next day,
the team is back.

[Ed] Ok, so we’re good to go.

[narrator] They place
a hollow metal frame

onto their newly formed
weak layer,

and fill it
with a fresh load of snow.

This is to simulate

a hard-packed slab layer
on the surface.

In a few hours,
this new snow will be settled,

and the avalanche stage
will be set.

[man] Alright, straight up.

[soft anticipatory music]

[narrator] Isolating
a vertical column of snow,

the team uncovers
the 3 buried layers.

A strong, thick base layer,

a pencil thin weak layer,
and another strong slab on top.

A perfect avalanche layer cake.

The final step:
tiny specks of black paint

are spattered onto the snow.

Then a special image-recognition
system is put in place.

Monitoring how the specs move
with respect to each other

the team can track exactly where
and how the weak crystals fail.

[man] Tony, go ahead and start
taking images on my mark.

Three, two, one, go!

[narrator] And then,
at about 5 pounds of force,

the weak layer suddenly breaks.

Not much to see
with the naked eye,

but in the last day and a half,

the crystals have lost
80% of their strength.

And the camera
tells the whole story.

[man] And now you can see
it's starting to show up.

And, what that’s signifying
is how much the two planes

in that sample
are sliding by each other.

We step it one more,
and you can see,

we’ve had
that catastrophic failure.

[narrator] Disrupting
a layer cake of snow like this

on a steep mountain slide

would almost certainly
create an avalanche.

[narrator] There are still
lots of unanswered questions

in the understanding
the specific weather patterns

that create certain snowpacks,

and knowing exactly
what it takes to break them.

But thanks to this lab,

we’re getting
closer than ever before.

The lab may be a long way

from being buried alive
on a mountain slide,

but for this researcher,
investigating the finer details

is now what life is all about.

Coming up on How Tech Works.

[narrator]
We’ll meet a disabled man

with extremely
“heightened expectations"

to fly the skies!

And... this spider
reacts to human commands.

And good thing,
‘cause it’s a monster!

[upbeat electronic music]

Hello, and welcome back
to How Tech Works,

I’m Basil Singer.

Now this next story
features one of those people

we just love to meet.

He’s determined to prove
that the seemingly impossible

is actually quite doable
if you have the passion, drive,

and technological know-how.

Now, his name is Dan Buchanan,

and he wants to fly
a hang glider, but

Dan has got a bigger challenge
than the fear of heights,

because he’s disabled.
Have a look at this.

[narrator] The California
International Airshow

in Salinas:
Acrobatic Stunt Flying,

fabulous formations,
explosive recreations.

It's not the place
you'd expect to see this...

Dan Buchanan will fly
his hang glider

just about anywhere,
and there's a good reason.

I have to fly
because I can't walk!

Dan’s amazing performance

is done before thousands
of airshow fans,

week after week...

He refused to be held back

by the accident
that paralyzed him 30 years ago.

In fact, flying gives him
a feeling of invincibility...

[Dan] You kind of feel
like Superman!

There's nothing like this.

[narrator] Now, the only thing
that can ground him

is the weather. Will the wind
at today’s airshow be a problem?

[man] We have no idea
what's going on!

[Dan] It sure is windy up here!

[narrator] His interest
in flying goes back

to his very first time
in the air, at the age of 18.

My first flight ever
in an airplane

I skydived out of it.

So I never landed
with the airplane.

I just took off
and never landed!

[narrator] His love
with hang gliding began.

There's nothing like this,

you're completely out
in the open,

you're laying horizontal,
head forward, like Superman.

[Dan] Below you is nothing
except the ground,

however far away that is,

and the wing is above you
so you really don't see it.

But it's all feeling,
it's all subconscious

After a lot of hours,
you don't even think about it,

you just do it.

[narrator] Just a short time
into his hang gliding career,

though, on a stormy day,
Dan’s life would change forever.

When I landed, ok.

Then the glider smacked me
on the helmet so hard,

that it broke my back.

When I paralyzed my legs
it was instantaneous,

I knew what I’d done to myself,

and what the road was going
to be from that moment on,

nobody had to tell me.

[narrator] Something else
nobody could tell him,

“You can’t fly anymore.”

No, I never thought
about giving up flying!

I was just in a hurry
to get back in the air. [laughs]

[narrator] And just
six months later,

Dan was airborne once again,
in a slightly modified glider.

[Dan] Laying in a hospital bed
I had a lot of time

to think about how
I was going to adapt the glider

so I can launch and land it.

So, it turned out to be
incredibly simple, I just

put two wheels on,

that was the only modification
I had to do.

[narrator]
After a chance meeting

with some airshow promoters,

he was asked to fly
in their event.

[Dan] I knew about
these tow systems

for flatland launching
of hang gliders.

A friend of mine had one,

we went out
and practiced a bunch,

and performed in the show.

That was the first airshow
I'd ever been to,

and here I am flying in it!
[giggles]

[narrator] The tow system
is a finely tuned machine.

A rope and pulley system
with tension read-outs.

Ray Leonard
doesn’t pull any punches

on his role in the process.

We call it Energy Management.

We provide the energy,
and Dan manages it.

[Ray] This is the tow line
that's attached

to the glider and the pilot.

We've got a pressure gauge

that monitors
the pressure on this line.

At the very end,
the glider releases,

from the tow line
and he free-flies down.

[narrator] Time to suit up
for today’s show!

Dan uses
a regular hang glider harness,

with one alteration.

I just added
this leather skid plate

to get more life out of it,
because my legs

drag on the pavement.

[narrator] Once he’s ready,
he’s hoisted up onto the glider.

[Ray] Getting the line
hooked up to Dan's harness...

[narrator] They have
backup safety systems in place,

and even backups
for the backups.

For today’s show,
Dan will launch himself

into the airspace
of a stunt pilot’s acrobatics.

It’s all part of the act.

[Dan] Everything is
extremely structured and timed

right to the 30 seconds window
of when to go,

regardless of what's happening
in the atmosphere.

[narrator] As they watch
the stunt display,

Ray knows just went to get
the truck up to speed.

[Ray] So we get going
about 35 miles an hour,

and that’s our launch speed.

[Ray speaking loudly]
Wait a minute now, hold it,

out on the runway...

air boss Gale Willy,
what is happening?

[Ray] Ah listen, close line boy,
with that tow truck,

you’re not supposed to be
on Kirby's runway.

We have no idea what’s going on.

[narrator]
The act starts as planned,

but the winds are just
a little too strong for Dan.

[Dan] It sure is windy up here!

[wind howling]

Hell yeah!
It's gonna get a lot windier

when Kirby comes up on you
6 o’clock position like...

Right about now.

[narrator] Unfortunately,
Dan has to cut the act short,

and he lands after just
two minutes of airtime.

But despite the short show,
it’s a safe landing.

And that’s the key in making
the decision to end it early.

Airshows are Dan’s life now,

and there’s always
another one waiting.

[Dan] It's very stressful,
it's a lot of anxiety.

But that's also some of the fun,
too, making it all work.

Earlier in the show

we took a look
at some very smart robots

that were capable of completing
a number of difficult tasks.

They were also capable of, well,
creeping us out a little bit.

Our last story continues
in a similar vein.

For all you arachnophobes
out there, I present...

“The Spider Puppet.”

Me? I’m not scared of spiders...

honest.

[narrator] Just when you thought
you were safe,

your worst nightmare
comes to life.

It’s bigger
than you ever imagined...

and it’s loose on the street!

[dog barks]

[narrator] It's... it's...
[suspenseful music]

It’s a giant Spider Puppet!

Oh come on, admit it!

It is pretty scary,
even for the guy who created it.

[Tim] Actually,
I’m quite scared of spiders.

I really don’t like them.
I can’t even pick them up.

Little ones don’t bother me
but anything bigger than that,

and I’m going to
run away screaming.

[narrator] Whether you scream
or giggle, Tim Davies is happy.

He just wants a reaction.

[Tim] There’s been quite a lot
of really impressive puppets

made recently
on a very grand scale.

So I wanted to make
something that was big

but also had the ability to have
kind of an emotional response

to people on the street.

[narrator] His inspiration
were the incredible puppets

built for the stage production
War Horse.

To get the same kind
of emotional response

those puppets do, Tim knew

his spider would have to move
just as realistically.

I wanted to make a big puppet
that could move delicately.

[narrator] It’s taken
more than a year to get there,

from conceptual drawing
to working prototype.

[Tim] I built maybe 10,
15 different trial versions

of the legs to see what
would work best

that's the hardest bit
to get right in a way,

all the kinetics
and the various weight balances

to make the legs work properly.

[narrator] Assuming the legs
work properly together,

which is hard to predict.

After all, this is
an inflatable puppet.

[Tim] One of the main problems
is that you can’t see it

until it’s done, so basically
you’ve got a huge heap of cloth

on the floor that looks like
a pile of bin bags lying there,

and you’ve got to imagine
how that’s going to be

when you actually blow it up,
so you rely on your modeling

to make sure you’re going
to get what you want.

[narrator] Tim first thought
he could use compressed air

to make it move.

But after a long time
of trialing that,

I realized it wouldn’t work,
so I started

on a different technique
which is working

with the cable-operated,
cable actuated joints

that I’m using at the moment.

[narrator] The cables
take care of leg movements.

But before this spider can walk,
it has to stand.

And that’s not easy on eight
spindly, air-filled legs.

[Tim] Inside the spider there’s
sort of an aluminum skeleton,

adding some support to the legs,
and there’s also glass fiber

that allows it to be
very long and thin

whilst also being strong.

[narrator]
Behind all great puppets

is a puppeteer.

[Tim] You want to have
as close a connection

between your hand,
which is doing the work,

and your body, and the object
that you’re manipulating.

[narrator] And that’s why
Tim’s created a cable system

that turns hand movements
into spider movements.

All of these rear handles here
control the lift of the leg,

and on the second handle here,

these handles control
the curl of the legs.

So if you pull
all the levers in sequence,

what you get is the whole spider
lifting and curling its legs.

It’s really simple,
it works a bit like a...

a finger tendon.

And then the rest of it
is all just gravity,

so the leg’s falling back down
to earth by gravity.

[narrator] A fan is used
to inflate the spider

during the performance.

You can hear the fan running,
that’s setting up air

straight up into the center
of the spider’s body

and then the air is coming out
and being delivered

via the center of the spider
through all these tubes

into the ends of the legs.

[narrator]
Tim’s spider is getting

even more of a reaction
than he bargained for,

not just on the street,
but online.

I’ve got 300,000 views of video,

I got e-mails
from all over the world,

from different people who were
interested in getting involved,

or offering me
project possibilities,

or wanting to cover it
in the media,

so that's been
really brilliant.

[narrator] He’d like to make
his spider easier to use.

Right now, it’s heavy to wear.

More plastic or aluminum
would make it lighter.

And he wants to build
a long-lasting battery pack.

After that,
Tim has even bigger plans.

Working on large
kinetic sculpture,

this kind of scale
is a lifelong project.

You’re never going to get
to say, “Oh great,

I’ve finished it, lovely,
that’s the one I want.”

You’re always going to be
developing and inventing

and re-engineering it, so...

I see it as an on-going project.

[narrator] Who knows?
Someday there could be

a swarm of spiders
coming to a street near you.

On second thought,
one is quite enough!

Oh, would you look at that?

All the time
we’ve got for today,

I’m Basil Singer,

and I’ll see you
on the next one!

[ending music]