OK, here goes with the machine observations - the ram used by the Beach Boys could have been stuffed with chains, bolt etc and welded shut. Also, a pointed, broad head type end on the ram would have greatly increased the penetration and destructive potential.

Any other thoughts anyone ?

-- Tony (e1ectro@aol.com), September 17, 2000

Answers

Tony the ram had lenghts of solid bar stuffed up it. And it should have had a pillow on the end to cusion the blow. Well thats what i think

Andy

-- Andy (Chaos Crew captain) (andy@middleton.demon.co.uk), September 18, 2000.

I think the beach boys should have used a pointed end

-- ben reynolds (phyco_reynolds@hotmail.com), November 05, 2000.

It would have been much more efficient had they had the pole welded to the frame with the ability to make adjustments. Not only would they have had the full force of the vehicle, but they would have also been finished much more rapidly. Also in the episode to raise the mini, they crane was welll thought out, except that the base should have been at the back, they coould also have poked holes in the rear tanks to balance the weight of the mini. (NO one said it had to be reusable)

-- Adam (keebs1@hotmail.com), November 28, 2000.

That is asking an awful lot of a junked vehicles brakes and frame. They would have to stop before any of the chassis entered the safety zone as that would get them penalized. As to the frame, the trucks got into the yard for a reason, and it wasn't rust in the sheet metal. It would be an interesting question just how many slams you would have been able to make with such a ram, before the truck got to short to be useful. I agree, since kinetic energy goes up with the square of the velocity, double the speed of the ram, and get 4x the impact.

If we were in that one, I suspect that we would have used some sort of powered arrangement to pull the ram back, and as a result, been able to use something even heavier (say half the mass of the truck)

Steve G's writeup on Muncher, talked about how weak Munchers frame turned out to be. The big turntable turned out to be very useful in keeping both ends of the truck attached to each other.

Oh yea, if you check out my Submarine design notes, at the bottom are some alternative designs for our sub.

-- Jeff - The NERDS (dp@the-nerds.org), November 28, 2000.