02x05 - Water Dancing

[bunniefuu]

♪ We've got two days to get this straight

♪ We got a challenge just won't wait

our eyes are on the prize ♪ An engineer

just set the date ♪ We got this client

can't be late oh, no, it's go time

♪ Build it, test, fix it debug now and kick it

♪ Got to get it off the ground yeah

♪ Stick around and you'll see what teamwork's supposed to mean

♪ It's so key Design Squad

Design Squad!♪

All right, Design Squads, ready for your new challenge?

Yeah!

Excellent.

So this week we have a client that's in a unique situation

that your engineering skills will lend themselves very well

to.

So without further ado, let's roll the tape.

I'm Lisa Bufado.

I'm a dancer and a performance artist.

But in reality, I'm a shape shifter.

Every since a serious bacteria infection led to the amputation

of both of my legs, I've relied on prosthetics and ingenuity in

my work and in my life.

I explore the different forms my body can take using different

mediums.

I'm interested in pushing the boundaries of what's possible.

That's where you come in.

I'm hoping you can help me explore a medium I've always

been fascinated with-- water.

I need you to design me a pair of prosthetics that will propel

me through the water.

It must be human powered, made of nontraditional materials, and

be evocative of a sea creature.

Transform my body.

Good luck, Design Squads.

That is so cool.

Wow.

Pretty interesting, huh?

So she wants it to be inspired by a sea creature.

To that effect, we've put some pictures of different sea

creatures in your workspaces to help yourselves out.

We have a pool that you guys can go out to and try things out

with to get some additional inspiration.

Also, one last thing is we gave you some extra things in the

shop in some bins over there in the back that can hopefully help

inspire you as well.

So grab some stuff and then go and start brainstorming.

Ping pong paddles.

Grab some of that.

Water g*ns, guys.

Wow, okay.

Let's see the pictures.

Okay, so seahorse is kind of cool.

Can we just do, like, a massive brainstorm on the white

board?

Throw whales up there.

Penguins.

She uses prosthetics, so it's like, wow, that's amazing, you

know?

With every client that we get, it's completely... it's

completely different what they want and what they need, so it's

definitely very cool that... you know, that there is a profession

that deals on such a wide variety of needs.

And when you hear, like, "engineering," you're like, "Oh,

I'm going to be building bridges," and, like, engineering

type things.

Cars.

Yeah.

You wouldn't imagine there was engineering in making

costumes.

But there is.

Starfish.

Starfish.

I feel very constricted, just like these are our choices.

I think with this, you need a theme.

But it doesn't have to be constricted.

Like, for example, if you want to just mix certain parts of an

animal... we don't even have to label it as something.

I don't think we should throw a bunch of different things at

her, like, "Oh, we have fins, and then we have webbed feet,

and then we have this and that and this and that," and so it's

just this massive, like... a sea monster.

I don't think we should make the creature from the black lagoon.

I think we should stay on a certain theme and roll with it.

I've got an idea-- let's argue a lot.

That'll get stuff done.

What have we decided to design, guys?

I really like the idea of having this be sort of like a

jellyfish.

I really love that.

Me, too.

If we use them on the hands they'll be like this.

And on the way back, she gets all of her power.

I like it.

Nick's idea is an example of Newton's third law of motion at

work-- for every action force, there is an equal and opposite

reaction force.

As Lisa pulls back on the open umbrella, an equal and opposite

reaction force pulls her forward.

When Lisa pushes the umbrella, it closes and easily moves

forward through the water.

So the reaction force is smaller, and pushes her

backwards only a little bit.

That means the forward motion on her pull stroke is greater than

the backward motion on her push stroke, so she moves forward.

There won't be much forward propulsion if the umbrellas

don't open quickly enough.

Or they might just buckle under the load.

So to help propel Lisa through the water, Purple Team should

choose a foolproof design for her legs.

I think we should give her flippers.

Something to aid her swimming.

Something that attached to her feet better, like that.

Oh, okay.

So flippers on the feet, umbrellas on the hand.

I like that idea.

Yeah.

Hi, guys.

So I brought in some things.

This is a cast of one of Lisa's legs, and this is a sleeve that

she puts over it before she puts the prosthesis on.

Now, this interfaces with these carbon fiber layouts.

Now, these are not off the shelf products.

These are from a special company that molds these to her exact

leg.

There's a locking mechanism that goes in.

On the bottom of these are mounts.

Now, for round stock, the socket attachment goes onto the end of

the carbon fiber and screws into the inserts.

You put this attachment onto the end of it, tighten up the bolts,

and then the round stock is inserted into the clamp.

All right?

Additionally, you can bolt this guy onto the end and then attach

flat stock if you so choose.

If you want to interface through her hands, her fingers are

partially reduced, and so you'll need to have some kind of

attachment, probably to the wrist or the forearm, if you

want to have anything that can take some force.

We gave you some wrist guards that can help you out with that.

Lastly, Lisa will be here tomorrow to check out your

designs and try them out a little bit.

Okay.

Keep it up.

Make some neat things, all right?

Thank you.

Thank you.

I like this one.

I know, I do too.

Oh, wow.

I think this is called a lion fish.

And I think it's really easy to take the aesthetic of this

and then make it into something usable.

So do you just want to settle on lion fish?

I don't even settle.

I vote for the lion fish.

All right, so lion fish it is.

If this is what we want to do, we got to find a way that

this will actually be able to propel someone through the

water.

Okay.

Going this way.

Oh, and it would open.

Yeah.

And them I'm going again, and then I'm going to pull again.

I don't think we can just strap an umbrella to her arms

and have it go.

That's not engineering.

You just strap something.

We're just saying use the umbrella idea as you push

forward.

Can we modify the umbrella?

No, we have to use the umbrella exactly as it is.

Thank you, Mr. Sarcastic.

But can...

What if we use a paddle, like the ping pong paddle?

That would provide some propulsion forward.

I like that.

I like it a lot.

And we can also attach other flowy things.

Okay, yeah.

So then we'd have to make, like, flippers for the legs.

I'd just model it after the fish.

The fish has the inverted triangle fin at the back.

It's like there, a little rounded edge, rounded edge.

All right, cool.

I'd model it after that, then.

That is the look we're going for.

It looks cool.

I want to just try to learn what I can from the existing

umbrella and see if I can just modify it.

Brilliant.

That's really cool.

That's great.

Guys, I'm going to need your help about the designing of the

flippers.

I have an idea here, but...

I like that.

Do you want to add, like, different shapes, like maybe

this, or maybe something else?

What if it was like that?

Even that looks like a fish fin, sort of.

Oh, okay.

And it's going to be out of polycarbonite so you can see

through it; it's going to be...

That's cool.

Yeah.

I like that idea.

So now it's time to put this together.

See how clean that is?

Wow.

Those flippers look amazing, you know?

What if we strung glow sticks on the inside, or streamers?

Oh, I like that.

Okay, which one do you guys think is better?

I think this one.

We drilled these holes so we could put the light plastic into

them, and these are going to be attached to your hands to propel

with.

Oh!

That's nice.

All right, can I cut fabric for it?

I like it.

Cut it up.

How do people feel about this?

I was a little nervous about this challenge.

I just feel like I really got to try and please someone this

time, and, like, it's... there's something that matters behind

this.

I feel a little uneasy, almost, like, you know, I don't want to

mess up and make something that's going to look awful.

I agree.

I'd rather not.

I just took some bamboo I found, and then I'll affix it to

the wrist guards.

She can put her hand in, and then she'll be able to pull and

just glide through the water.

Want to try this out in the pool?

You're about the same size as Lisa.

Oh, sure.

She's flying.

No, it broke.

No.

It just came off the end.

I don't know why.

Here's the reason why the umbrella broke.

The team removed the umbrella's spring so it wouldn't lock open.

But there's a notch in the shaft made for the spring.

When Leah pulled back hard on the umbrella, stress from the

load was highest, or concentrated, at the notch, and

that broke the shaft.

So to avoid another break, Nick needs to reinforce the shaft at

the notch.

But he doesn't.

I'm gluing the handle in place.

And that way, when Lisa pulls back, it won't come out on here.

Like a five ways palm tree.

I'll go in the pool and try it out if we want to do that.

Really?

Yeah.

How's that look?

It looks cool, but is it easily moveable?

It's not secure the way it is, because it keeps... it's

kind of, like, moving around and coming out.

Okay.

So...

So what would you suggest we need to fix?

We definitely need to find a way to attach it.

So I'd say go back in, work on what we want to do for the...

Get, like, a hard-core plan for what we're going to do

tomorrow.

Awesome.

So what is it that we need to do, guys?

One of the first things we're going to have to come in

and do tomorrow is figure out how we're going to do those feet

and how we're going to attach them so we can get at least...

Yeah.

There are a lot of possibilities that we can do,

like...

We can always make a...

Oh!

Oh, no!

That's it for day one, Design Squads.

Oh, Nick got me so bad.

All right, day two.

All right, back to work.

What are our choices for making the fins?

Do we want to use the paddle, the ping pong paddle?

Green Team?

Hi, Nate.

Hello.

Meet Lisa.

Hi.

How's it going?

The basic idea we were going for is we wanted to model it

after the lion fish.

Like, there's a picture of it right up behind you over there,

so...

Oh, beautiful.

Basically, it's going to have a paddle that's attached to your

hand, so... for forward propulsion.

But then there's also the kind of ornamental aesthetic attached

to it to imitate the lion fish's fins.

And this is the suspension?

We're working on the suspension.

It worked, but we're trying to make it a little more

comfortable and that sort of thing.

Uh-huh.

You guys have some kind of attachments for her legs as

well?

This is the main paddle area that you'll use for propulsion.

Then we'll add the spines coming off it.

So there's two of those.

One for each foot.

But the fish only has one.

The fish only has one, yes.

Okay.

I'm trying to think.

So would you be comfortable if instead of having them as two

separate ones for each leg we just had one sort of...

Well, definitely in my mind I'm comfortable with that.

Physically, we'll just have to wait and see.

[ laughter] So let's come back and test

when you guys are ready.

All right.

Thank you.

It sounded like she wanted one piece.

Yeah, sounded like she did too.

Okay, let's try it.

Good job.

That's it.

Hey, guys.

Hello.

Hi.

How are you?

Good, how are you?

Good.

So Purple Team, you guys are ready to test, right?

Uh-huh.

Lisa, you ready to test?

Yeah, let's go.

I'm ready to watch you test.

Let's go.

The leg.

You can see it flex a little bit when she shifts her weight?

It's really cool.

Okay.

These work really well.

Is there anything to change, or is there any suggestion?

I think they're lovely.

I think that you guys did a great job on these.

I definitely think the more streamers the better.

How about the arm ones?

Want to test the arms?

Do you want to try the arms?

Sure.

Is this the way you want it?

Yep.

Just tell me if it fits you tight-- is that good?

Yep.

Hmm.

I mean, I think it's beautiful, but I'm not sure about how

functional it's going to be.

I don't know.

I would hate to lose these, because it seems like

aesthetically they're really, like, you know... yeah, they're

the thing that it's just kind of like, "Wow, umbrellas," you

know?

She seemed pretty uncomfortable with the hand

umbrellas at first, but she seemed to really, really like

them.

So we wanted to hang onto the whole look with the umbrella and

the whole jellyfish look.

So I think we're pretty much set and on our way.

So I'm going to wait here for the other team, and I'll see you

guys later.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you.

We'll see you later.

Bye.

Bye.

Let's go test these out.

When you guys put these sockets on, did you just try and

make it even like this?

Because my legs are different lengths.

The way this is... we just put tape on it so it wouldn't come

off.

So we can now do the alignment.

Great.

Okay, I think that's good.

Is it okay as just one fin?

I love it as one.

Okay.

Is the wood too buoyant?

Because it kind of looks like it's...

It seems like it is.

We're going to fix that.

So let's go inside, and I can sit without my legs on, and you

can just do a drawing of the length of both, and then that

way that'll help you put together the fin with the length

and everything.

You might want to mark a knee on each side just to kind of...

Knee.

Okay?

All right, thank you.

Great, sure.

I'll see you a little later on.

Okay, bye.

Bye.

What do we need to do now that we've spoken with her?

I'll finish the flippers, make some holes.

You can cut the streamers.

And then...

I can drill the holes in the polycarbonate.

You want to drill them?

Because it's really dangerous.

[ imitating Tomas's accent]: In my country women don't exist.

What?

Nick...

Oh, so you're okay with letting me cut the fabric, but

drilling is too dangerous.

That was great.

It's supposed to be this size, but you got it.

I like it.

See?

Women can use power tools.

So there.

Flippers are good.

I really like it with a lot more streamers on it.

I think it'll look cool.

Okay, so what do we want to do?

What's our main plan?

I'm thinking maybe we could find other material that is not

as buoyant as this.

I know there's some ABS in the shop.

All right, so it's basically this.

I like that.

All right, let's go.

Look-- it's just like that.

The key thing is to make this one's notch a little shorter

than this one's notch.

There we go.

There's our flipper.

What if we make a hand paddle, so her hand is strapped

down?

Then the hard piece of ABS is on the bottom, on the palm of her

hand.

Yeah, that'll work.

All right, let's roll.

Do a strip here, really taut.

We throw that down on top of that.

That provides a nice little grippy area.

Throw the wrist guard here, we strap it on, badda bing, badda

boom.

And now we got a fin.

This looks okay.

Yeah.

I like it.

I like it.

So basically you need to attach all the big colorful

flippers to our tailpiece, and then to the other hand piece,

right?

That's cool.

Great job.

It's much better now.

Hey, Design Squad.

Hi.

Okay, Purple, you're up first.

So we switched our streamers to orange to match the umbrellas

that we use for your hands.

Good choice.

I'm just going to try the flippers first, and then we'll

do the hands separate.

Okay.

Did you see how quickly she got over here?

I love it.

Cool.

So how does it feel?

What's it like?

They work really well.

Should we try the arms, too?

Those aren't too tight?

No, that feels great.

Okay.

It looks like a real jellyfish moving in the water.

It just came off.

I think one of the umbrellas broke.

But they're beautiful.

All right, Lisa, are you ready for Green Team?

Okay.

Well, if you liked Purple Team's, you're going to love

this.

Can we try the arms?

Sure.

It looks amazing.

It looks amazing.

It looks incredible.

Is that enough?

Are you all right?

Yep, I think that's good.

Are you ready to huddle up and figure out who's going to

win?

Yeah, I'll take a few moments to decide here.

All right.

Design Squads, head over to the bleachers.

All right, so we've got the footage from Purple Team's

design.

Great.

I really wanted to look at this, because it's really the

aesthetics is kind of key.

The umbrella, that was such a really smart concept.

It came out really nice.

Beautiful, yeah.

I mean, its motion really was naturally like a jellyfish.

I think we'll win.

We have a very high chance.

If she really is going by aesthetics and how well she was

able to handle it, I think we've got that one.

Here we go.

What's so stunning is just how much space in the water this

is taking.

It's really amazing.

It isn't really easy.

Yeah.

And that was clear, too.

Our chances are very slim, I think.

Why do you say that?

I think we've got a good shot at it.

We've definitely got the aesthetic going.

Yeah, we do.

I guess we've seen enough of this thing, and we'll go tell

them who wins.

Okay.

All right, Design Squads.

We have a decision.

Lisa, if you would?

Well, this was a really difficult decision to make,

because I had a lot of things to consider.

In terms of swimability, I really felt like the flippers

were the best at that.

The umbrellas were really beautiful, but I didn't feel

like they really worked that well in the water.

And then when I tried Green Team's full flipper and arms, it

was a little bit scary to use, because it commanded so much

energy and muscles that I hadn't used before.

But this had a cohesive overall aesthetic to it and really

transformed my body into something that was completely

different from what it could do otherwise.

So Green is the winner.

After five challenges, Leah clings onto the lead.

But the competition's heating up with the five-way tie for second

place.

Hey, have you checked our Web site?

Yeah, it's pretty cool.

You can build projects on your own or with your friends, and

you can win cool stuff.

Oh, check it out.

Go to pbskidsgo.org.

Coming up, it's thrills, chills...

I feel like I'm not on this team anymore.

...and spills.

Next time on Design Squad.ionedy