Last night I watched three consecutive episodes of Junkyard Wars on The Learning Channel. It’s a British show, kind of a cousin to the robot building competitions. Two teams have to build a contraption that performs a certain goal (last night: demolition, bomb dropping, and underwater maneuvers) using what they find in the scrapheap around them. This typically involves lots of welding. The teams of 4 include one expert (a ringer, really). At first, I feared that the hosts would be annoying window dressing, but they were great. The female host, Cathy Rogers, co-created and produces the show, so she’s far from vapid. Robert Llewellyn, “Kryten” from Red Dwarf, adds a lot of humor. There are clear, educational explanations of the physics of the tasks and the mechanics of the machines. The original British name for the show is Scrapheap Challenge, and it’s filmed by RDF Media. There are FAQ’s on both sites (and be wary if you run across the schedule Wallchart page, because it reveals who wins each event by listing the teams in the next set of finals). The American team on the series, The NERDS, have their own site describing their experience on the show. It too reveals how they fared, so be warned.