BULLET TIME FAIL (Slowmo) - Smarter Every Day 101

Surprised you had it running at full speed. Hey, it's me, Destin. Welcome back to Smarter Every Day. This is Mark Rober. Mark is using me. Is this true or false? - [laugh] - Mark is using me to access your subscribers. I'm not really happy about this, Mark. - That is a false statement. - That's exactly what's happening. [music]

Alright. So in the field of engineering, people always celebrate these awesome, great achievements, but they never really think about all the failures that it took to get to that point. Well, this video's different. In this video, I'm gonna show you the failures that we experienced when we were trying to make a bullet time rig using a phantom high-speed camera.

OK, so I brought a high-speed camera out here. Mark did this GoPro rig with an armature, and he could see around things. It's kind of like simulated bullet time, only with movement, so we're gonna try the same thing with high speed with this rig that they've built. And have you ever had it up to full speed? - No, it's too dangerous. [laugh] - This is dumb. We're in the middle of the desert. We're doing high speed in the dark? Whose idea was this? [laugh]

So we've got a mirror apparatus. - That's right. So basically the way it works is, this whole thing is fixed. What we did is basically attach it to a DC motor. Watch the camera lens. - Got it. - And then you have a, you plant the camera down here so it's stationary, and then the light goes from here out to here, and then it bounces up here. So up here, you'll have like a watermelon. - Gotcha. - If you're gonna explode it, and because this is spinning around so fast, it's effectively like the camera's out here itself, but this is just a more safe way to do it.

• So 80/20 is a type of extruded aluminum that engineers geek out with a lot, and so basically you get this cross section and then you can use bolts and stuff like that. Ken would you like to talk about your creation? - If it's out of balance in any way, shape, or form, if the centre of gravity doesn't line right on this axis of the motor, of the spin, the whole thing is gonna wobble and orbit, and essentially we could generate enough forces that the whole thing would either catastrophically fall apart, or we could have parts fling off at us and it could be quite dangerous. So that's why you've got it strapped off here, right? Thanks, Ken, running out of light. Let's do it. [laugh]

Got a tripod head. So this is the camera tripod mount. This is Ken's, but we have to put it down below the mirror, get our distance right so that we don't have mechanical interference. - And we've got a propane balloon. (Destin) OK, and how're you gonna light it? - So we have a neon transformer here, and when we set it off, we're gonna see a spark jump across this gap, and I placed a match head in between that so that the propane itself will ignite. - Aren't you clever? Oh, this is a cool shot. So in the background, there is NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (Destin) Not as cool as what we're doing in this sketchy little riverbed. - And 3... 2... 1... fire. [pop] Oh no. [laugh]

(Destin) My thought is, when it's going boom, all that propane is pushing down, and there's no oxygen mixing with it, and it's just blowing away. - I believe that. - Why do you have your glasses on? (Destin) Safety. [laugh] - 3... 2... 1... [pop] [laughs] Yes! - Science! [cheering]

(Destin) OK, now we're going to do what? - Alright, now we're gonna speed test the system... Speeding up. - OK, pull it out, it's struggling. (Destin) Oh, come on man, look at that. [laugh] (Destin) Art. - Fine. - We're on. - You see that mode? It's that plate that bends. (Destin) Alright, alright, alrighhhht - Stop-stop-stop-stop! Ohhh. - I think we're... (Destin) Was it rolling? - I don't know if I was. [moan] (Destin) Look at the camera, look at the camera. What are you thinking right now, Mark? - It's recoverable. Arrrgh, you learn from your errors. I want to kill you. [laugh]

So basically, the centre of mass on this mirror isn't lined up with the axis of where we have the bolts, so it's sort of weak, so essentially... (Destin) It's just a friction - It's a friction joint here, so there's an offset sort of a moment that was causing this to come out. (Destin) So basically, the centre of mass of this mirror is a few inches below the hinge point. - The hinge point, right. - And so that creates a moment about that friction joint, and then once you get to that certain rotational velocity then... - It was just too much. It overcame that friction, and then we contacted right here.

• Alright, let's run through our failures. Number one. It was too dark because my plane came in late. Number two, the balloon couldn't pop the way we wanted it to, so we had to use a torch. Number three, we didn't line the camera up right with the armature. Number four, if you use a mirror, you'll lose about 30% of the light by the time it reflects off the surface. The solution for this is to use what's called a front surface mirror, which basically has the reflective surface on the outside. That way, the light doesn't have to go through the glass to get to the reflective surface.

Number five, of course, is the mirror slipped and banged against the armature. The fix for this was to put a mechanical hard stop in position. And finally, fire's really not that interesting in this setup. If you think about it, you've got this big flame that's kind of nebulous and there's no real point you can focus on. Even though we had all these failures, this is part of the design process. Once we worked through all these failures, we were able to come up with this. [music]

OK, if you want to see more of this Matrix footage because it's amazing, then go check out Mark Rober's channel. I subscribed to him a long time ago. He earned my subscription with the Mars rover video and also his roadkill video, and if you give him a shot I bet he'll earn yours too. Anyway, I'll leave a link over here on the side. If you want to check him out, give him a shot.

OK, this video was all about failure, which is why for today's sponsorship on Smarter Every Day, I'm gonna recommend the book "Failure is not an Option" by Gene Kranz. If you don't know who this guy is, he's pretty awesome. He was in mission control from the Apollo program even before that, Gemini even. He was there for Apollo 13. Anyway, human lives were on the line, they stared failure in the face, and they beat it. It's pretty awesome. So you can listen to this if you go to audible.com/smarter, download this book, it's pretty awesome. I'll leave a link in the video description.

• [Arnold Schwarzenegger accent] Go download the book now! - I'll leave a link in the video description; you can click it. Wrong way, turn right. Don't fail. We just missed our turn. [laugh] Failure is not an option. audible.com/smarter. Um, download a book.. - [in Schwarzenegger accent] Get to the website now! - Support our sponsors. Thank you very much, I'm Destin, you're getting Smarter Every Day. Have a good one. [Captions by Andrew Jackson] captionsbyandrew.wordpress.com Captioning in different languages welcome. Please contact Destin if you can help.