Jamie and Adam wanted to test a recent viral video that depicted a man wrapped in bubble wrap falling off a 3-story building and surviving with no major injuries. The guys used Buster (crash test dummy) for the first test.  Buster was dropped with nothing protecting him and then wrapped in the approximate amount of bubble wrap the guy in the video had. The initial test pretty much busted the video as both drops created 250 plus G, which was about 4 times the impact of a car accident.

The guys then set out to see how much bubble wrap would allow someone to survive. They tested small, medium, and large bubble wrap and found little difference in its overall cushioning ability. They got up to 32 inches of wrap and decided it was not plausible to continue adding layers. They came up with a mattress design using rows of cylinders created from bubble wrap with a sheet over the rows. The new design worked great in the shop, so the guys decided to test it with Adam outside at 20 feet.

Adam was equipped with several stunt man safety rigs. He then was covered with 5 layers of just the bubble wrap and then two layers of the thick mattress-like design. The weight of all the wrapping became very uncomfortable and when the last layer went on, the team had to move fast. Adam was raised above the concrete, but some gusty wind caused the test to be delayed a bit. The delay was making Adam and Jamie nervous because of the strain the wrap’s weight was having on Adam. The wind subsided and the drop was made. A large thud was herd, but Adam emerged ok. He did have an uncomfortable bang on the back of his head, but overall he was fine. Adam was not up for the full 35-foot drop, so again Buster filled in and the data from his fall showed that even with the advanced bubble wrap method, the 35 foot drop would have severely injured someone. The myth was super busted on this one

Kari, Grant, and Tory were off on their own testing a movie myth. They wanted to test a James Bond myth of using a passenger ejection seat in a spy car to flip that same car back over on its wheels if it was lying on its roof. They could not get a 100 thousand dollar car to flip over so they got a cheap car with very similar specifications.

First the team tested an ejector seat. They used 4 rocket engines as power and although the car was filled with flames and smoke, the device worked great. Next they tried to get the 4-rocket ejector seat to flip the turned-over car. The rockets were not powerful enough and the car barely moved. Then with the help of an ammunition expert they gave their ejector seat the power of a fighter jet’s ejector seat. The explosion budged the car up a few inches, but not nearly enough to flip it back onto its wheels. Finally the crew had to resort to movie magic to replicate the result in the film. They used a nitrogen cannon flip the car onto its wheels and it worked great. Another movie myth busted.