Monster Hacks
I don't watch much television, but if I'm mindlessly flipping through channels there's one program that invariably causes a full stop: Monster Garage. In each episode, a crew of gearheads -- including mechanics, industrial designers, and welders -- have seven days and nights to transform an ordinary car into an extraordinary machine. The team can spend no more than $3,000 cash for parts and they're allowed to scavenge as much as possible to keep costs low. At the end of the show, they must race the enviable machine.
Teenage ambitions notwithstanding, I'm no gearhead. But you don't have to be a gearhead to enjoy watching Monster Garage. You need only have an appreciation for a small team celebrating their craft by pushing their collective skills to the limit in order to build something insanely cool. Each team member tends to be a generalizing specialist. One guy might be an expert welder, for example, but he's actively learning the skills of a mechanic and an industrial designer. That is, their small team needs experts who also have a general working knowledge of all the other skills necessary to successfully design and build the machine.
When I saw my first episode of Monster Garage, I thought it was just tomfoolery. After all, why would you want to waste the talents of a team in transforming a Chevy Impala into a Zamboni? Alright, so it's great fodder for Hollywood. But in building these crazy contraptions, I think the team gains invaluable experience. It's not often we get to step outside the box and experiment with taking our skills over the top. Indeed, we're usually practicing our craft on the job when failure is not a very good option. Trying new things is incredibly risky in these situations. Instead, what might happen if we had an opportunity to practice with impunity? How might stretching our skills to build something with no obvious business value help us when the business is on the line?
I want to get on the Monster Hacks show. In each episode, a small team of geeks would have a specific amount of time to transform ordinary tech gadgetry -- including software scripts, programming languages, and tools, cell phones, PDAs, iPods, and GPS units -- into an extraordinary hack. At the end of the show, the team must demo the working system. The show would make up for its lack of roaring engines and power tools with unfettered airing of team "discussions" and shiny tech toys.
Anybody have a contact at Discovery Channel?