In 2004 I competed in Scrapheap Challenge on Channel 4 with my friends Drew Irvine and Robin Pollok from Glasgow Science Centre. Our task was to build a device to launch a missile that would bounce across a lake and knock barrels off a floating pontoon. It was one of the most exhausting (and sometimes frustrating) things I've ever done, but it was a great experience, the TV people look after you very well, and we had a lot of fun. But it would have been nice to have won...even once.
Finished at last! The end of a very long build day.
Clackmannanshire depends on me!
Lunch in the build area - Drew and Robin pensive.
Hobnobbing with the famous - Robin accedes to Robert Llewelyn's request to have their photograph taken together.
Our machine. The beer barrel is the "bomb". It is loosely held in place by the arms above it. The whole device was winched along at high speed and then (in order to release the bomb) stopped...
...which, because we didn't have time to perfect the stopping arrangement, was not too good for the machine. Here we see it resting arse-first in the water after its final, spectacular, terminal, run.