hey everybody adam savage with a bit of mythbusters history to talk about uh but
i'd like to give you some framing about why i'm talking about mythbusters history um this is maybe
the largest weapon of war that we ever built on the show um this is a repeating aero firing
device that jamie and i made probably in the 11th or 12th season i can't quite remember exactly
the reason i'm talking about it is because this spent the last 10 years traveling around
the country as part of mythbusters the explosive exhibition a traveling science museum exhibition
that i am super proud of uh and i hope it came to your hometown it had some groundbreaking
aspects to it that no one had ever tried before if it didn't get to your hometown i'm sorry but
you won't get to see it because it's done but lest you be sad know that all of these props
are now being auctioned off by prop store to benefit the grant yamaha steam foundation
that's why i wanted to talk about this piece it's one of the bigger pieces in the auction for me and
jamie both this was a build in which we weren't we weren't positive we were going to get it right
we kept wrapping our heads around the totality of it and feeling optimistic
and yet when it finally worked we were both so chuffed so ecstatic about it
it became really clear that both of us were like really not sure this is gonna work
so let me walk you through why this thing the size of a freaking tantsu credenza um actually fired
arrows and how it did it really efficiently i i i'm super proud of this device okay
so operation was performed by a person who sat here and turned this crank and when you turned
this crank it turned well it would be locked to this wheel and it would drive this chain
this chain has a uh it has links but one of the links has a little bit of a proud post that's
right here this post would move around out here it would grab this carrier here and start to move
this entire frame oops sorry this entire framework back back and it'll be pushing it back
and uh when it gets to the end of pushing it back that is when the pin
comes off the the thing that it's caught then this surgical tube spring would bring it back
and it did it bring it it brought it back okay so that was the operation you turn this
and there'd be this reciprocating movement what happens when this comes back well what happens
is that this [ __ ] the string of the bow at the same time as it turns this spiral flute
spinning a barrel in here 180 degrees and each time it turns 180 degrees it grabs one of these
arrows it grabs one of these arrows and then delivers it to the arrow slot where at the end of
its throw it drops a little pin in here and fires that arrow right out the mouth of this dragon
we brought in an olympic level archer whose expertise was specifically around rapid firing
and we decimated his abilities i mean he was a phenomenal human being and excellent at his
skills we were just able to shoot like twice as many arrows it was so so satisfying um i
uh if you're wondering what aestheticizing i did i think it's pretty obvious i did the the lion's
head here at the base and i remember jamie getting a little salty about it he never liked when i
wanted to dress up our creations he was always like it's pandering it's pandering at any rate
i think the lion has an is an excellent addition um i wouldn't expect this to work
for most of the mythbusters objects we made they were made to work for the day they needed to work
but they were not engineered to work past that there are parts of this that are i can see worn
out from the day of our testing um so this is definitely a don't try this at home but oh my
god dude bring this home bid on this you need this piece of mythbusters history in your collection
and if you do add a tier collection i want to come see it because i think your collection's
probably pretty spectacular if you can fit in a piece like this there you go a little bit of
mythbusters history it's your one and only chance to add this to uh to obtain one uh the url is
propstore.com mythbusters and all proceeds as i said at the beginning go to benefit the
grant yamahara steam foundation thank you guys and i will see you next time
you