repoman

Just finished watching the episode about recreating the Chinese Rainbow Bridge, a wooden bridge of interlocking pieces sort of like a wicker basket.

While it wasn't the best episode (the obelisk making one was really good!) I thought it had a really funny kicker. It turns out that the Chinese scholar who initiated the project on the grounds that there were no existing bridges built with this method. But near the end of the show he take the American bridgebuilder and woodworkers to a covered bridge which he says is an "improvement" on the original rainbow bridge.

Also i noticed that looking at the film of the original local bridge (not a rainbow style bridge) that it was much less wobbly than current bridge. the old bridge was stayed by bamboo, the new one by iron links. Bamboo is looking like a great builing material, especially the way that it is weaved and that it shrinks as it dries.

elwoodblues

I only saw the trebuchet episode myself, but I thought it was excellent. The detail they go into with the engineering was very impressive, especially how the things worked better when put on rolling wheels in tracks and then fired.