- This is really happening.
Lincoln is all harnessed up.
We got police.
We've got a guy in a bucket.
The green light is blue.
Aah!
What?
- Today, we have this giant stoplight.
Look how big it is.
- This is an actual stoplight.
- A stoplight is so much bigger than I thought.
It's so big.
Look how big that is, like a soccer ball maybe,
even a basketball.
- Through here.
- Like 52, 51 inches.
- Here's the question.
Is a stoplight really this big,
like one that is up on the pole?
So we need to see if we can get up there
and measure one of them.
We have the key to the city that the mayor gave us.
- I would also like to present Lincoln and Dan
with their own key to the city.
- Yes.
I think it's time to call in a favor from the mayor,
and then we can come back here and cut this thing open,
take it apart, and see what's inside of it.
- Oh, I almost hit you.
- It's a real thing.
Keys to the city will get you access to a stoplight.
We got our mayor here.
Mayor, we've got the key to the city that you gave us.
Can we cash it in and get some help here for the stoplight?
- You can cash it in, absolutely.
For you, anything.
- For us, anything.
Do you hear that?
(upbeat synthesizer music)
- All right.
Ready?
- There it is.
It's green!
It is 50 1/2 inches.
It's the same as the other one.
- [Dan] How big is it?
- 50 1/2 inches!
- [Dan] How's the view from up there?
- Cool!
We did it.
- [Dan] You're sure that guy is recording, right?
- [Dan] Yikes.
- That was fun.
Yeah?
- [Dan] All the street lights just blew.
They made a loud explosion noise in there
and all of them went down.
- [Repairman] What did you do?
- What?
- [Dan] I'm serious.
They're all off.
- How?
- [Dan] All the street lights are now out,
those ones, those ones, these ones, and those ones.
Seriously, all the lights are out now.
- Did we like blow fuse or something?
That's kinda scary.
- I swear we didn't touch anything.
I promise, city.
Please don't take our key to the city away.
We didn't mean to hurt anything.
We have police blocking the streets.
Look at that.
At first I thought,
"Maybe we don't need the police so much."
But now that the lights blew
just randomly while we were here,
I'm grateful for the police.
Good news.
I see red.
Okay, red and green.
Whew!
We didn't shut the city down.
I was mostly concerned
that there was going to be an accident that happened
and it would've been on our watch.
Okay, good news.
Everything is fixed.
The street lights are good.
But what are we even looking at in here?
What is this thing?
Don't touch it.
Sticks his hand in it.
- The thing a lot of people don't know about traffic signals
is it's basically just a computer.
That's what this big box is right here.
It's just like your computer at home,
it's just in a different case
and has some different buttons on it.
- Does it have a sensor so it knows how many people are on,
like, say, there's 10 cars that are waiting,
or is it basically timed?
- Contrary to belief, we actually do monitor that,
and that's what these components are right here.
This particular one,
if you wanna turn around and look at it,
_
- [Dan] Oh, yeah, that guy.
- [_] It's a radar _
Same technology you use in your microwave.
- What if there's a firetruck driving down the street
and it has its sirens, is there something in the firetruck
that makes the signal automatically change to green for it?
- Another great question.
Remember growing up
when they used to tell you that you could
flash your lights and make the lights change?
You ever heard that one?
- [Dan] Yeah.
- Yeah, that doesn't actually work,
but it comes from the system that the fire department uses.
It's what they call Opticom.
This site doesn't have it,
but a lot of the ones down in Salt Lake do.
It uses an infrared light.
It will mount on the truck.
And as it approaches an intersection,
it blinks very, very fast.
It will make the signal change
to a pre-programmed set of times.
- What's inside your traffic stoplight box, computer box?
So basically, it's a computer with a bunch of sensors,
and depending on how busy the stoplight actually is,
that makes the determination of
which type of sensors do we wanna have in here.
I always wondered, how do the sensors work?
Do the firetrucks and police officers have a special sensor?
Now we know.
Let's take apart our stoplight and see what's inside of it.
Here's the back of it.
We have some kind of wires
that must feed from the pole down to the box
that actually tells it what to do.
It's actually, for structural reasons to be held on.
Oh.
That looks blue.
I'm sure it's green, but it definitely looks blue.
Blue, yellow, and red.
Oh, we've got a wasp nest right there,
a little dead wasp nest.
- We confirmed that it's about the same height.
- So now it's time to get inside of this thing.
But first things first,
I wanna cut off this giant shade part that covers the light
so we can get a good look at the light.
(upbeat synthesizer music)
We could've just unscrewed those screws
and it would've come off.
Clean off that light.
It's kinda cool, clean like that.
It's big, right?
How big is it compared to Lincoln's head?
Oh, it's bigger.
If we put this on Lincoln's head,
Lincoln's head is smaller than a stoplight.
Do you think people should make stoplight hats?
- You'd have to hold it.
That'd be annoying.
- [Dan] Now, I think if we just unscrew these things,
this will open up and we can see
the internals of a stoplight
and see really what's inside a stoplight.
Now let's see what's inside the red stoplight.
What's inside?
- It's a red light.
- [Dan] Is it?
Now, it's a white light.
It's just a regular light.
This is the red.
This is what makes the color.
This is just one.
- That feels so cool.
- That does feel cool inside of there.
This is the light bulb.
Let's take it out.
The light bulb inside of here is traffic, 8,000 hour,
69 watt, Sylvania base down,
130 volts, 640 L, whatever that is.
Let's see what's behind this giant reflective light cover.
This is screwed, this is not screwed on.
Oh, whoa!
- [Lincoln] Whoa!
- Yay!
Now we see what's inside of it.
- [Lincoln] It's red.
So, the yellow that I always call yellow is called amber.
- Amber.
Red, amber, and green.
I think of amber, I think of like sap from a tree color,
like in Jurassic Park.
- Or in Zelda, the mineral amber.
- So it's pretty simple what's inside of a traffic light,
'cause really, the brains and the operation
happen in that box that's down by the street
that we saw that exploded while we were doing this video.
But in here, it really just has a white wire and a red wire.
I think we need to take a BB gun and shoot this glass,
see if it'll break.
(rhythmic synthesizer music)
This is our really cheap little BB thing.
Let's get a little BB in there.
You have to pump it like 30 times.
I have shot through our plastic fence.
All right, hopefully this does not ricochet
and hit the camera, but here we go.
- [Lincoln] Three, two, one.
(glass cracks) Shoot!
- [Dan] Oh!
It went through it!
Look at that.
Oh, look at the exit wound.
It blew up pretty big.
And then there's little candy-looking things right here.
Wait, but where did the bullet go?
Did it go into there?
I don't know what happened to the BB.
Let's give it another shot. - Yeah.
- [Dan] You wanna shoot it?
- No.
- [Dan] Little BB.
- [Lincoln] Three, oh. (glass cracks)
(glass cracking)
- [Dan] I shot it a few more times.
- My gosh.
This is good.
- [Dan] Aah!
What?
- [Lincoln] I had to.
- [Dan] Good move.
There we go.
There's a thick piece of it.
Come look at the green.
I feel like the green is blue.
- What?
- [Dan] Doesn't that look blue?
- What?
- It looks like your shirt.
Is the green light really blue, and if not,
why does it look blue to us?
That is one thing we did not research for this video.
It looks so blue, like the sky.
Why is it blue?
It totally looks blue.
That is blue.
The green light is blue!
Next time we drive down the street and you see a stoplight--
- I will think that the stoplight is giant.
- [Dan] And you know how it works.
Every one of them has the same color bulb in it
with a couple little wires.
Whether it's red, amber, or green,
this glass is what makes the difference.
I hope you guys learned something today.
Thank you to our city, to our mayor, to the police officers.
Let us know what else we should what's inside of.
Twilight zone.
- What's that?