JUSTIN LONG: Previously on Shop Class...
You're building your very own bridge.
- Yay! - You just hit 2500 pounds.
(ALL SCREAMING)
(GROANING)
And the winning team is the Blue Team.
- (ALL CHEERING) - Yes!
JUSTIN: Morgan, Henry, and Gabriel secured their spot in the semifinals.
- Ooh, that would be cool. - NOLAN: Yes!
JUSTIN: Now, three new teams step into the spotlight
to put a modern twist on an outdoor classic...
I love that this thing is freaky.
JUSTIN: ...evolving the design
to make it more functional and interactive.
(ALL CHEERING)
JUSTIN: Then, we'll put their builds to the test
with what I like to call The Boulder Bash.
Bring on the boulder!
- (THUD) - ALL: Oh!
JUSTIN: With two spots remaining, which of these teams
will secure their place in the semifinals?
ALL: Oh!
(DRILLING)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
- MALE VOICE: Right through there. - FEMALE VOICE: Right here.
- FEMALE VOICE: This door? This door? - Whoa.
- Wow, okay. - Cool. Sweet.
When I first walked in, there was so much to look at
and so many possibilities in front of me.
- (ALL CHEERING, APPLAUDING) - Hey, everybody. Welcome to Shop Class.
- (CHUCKLING) - How's it going?
All right. Great new faces. Three teams have come to compete
but only one team will conquer and move on.
The winning team will advance to the semifinal round
and be one step closer to earning the title Shop Class Champs
and taking home an epic grand prize. All right!
We got the Green Team.
My name's Sean. I'm eleven, almost twelve, and I love building go-karts.
My name is Ruth, I'm 11 years old, and I love to 3D print and craft.
I'm Chris. I'm the shop teacher in Hillsborough, California.
I have a fine arts background and a masters in furniture design.
JUSTIN: We got the Blue Team.
I'm Nolan, I'm thirteen, and I love everything about woodworking.
I'm Giana, I'm a shop class teacher in Sacramento, California,
and my specialty is metalworking.
My name is Kelly, I'm fourteen years old. I'm very into designing robotics,
and I love pretty much everything about shop class.
JUSTIN: Rounding things off is the Gold Team.
My name's Brittany. I teach students everything
from woodshop to 3D printing to robotics.
ELLIE: My name is Ellie. I'm twelve years old.
I love building and decorating, and making things look pretty.
HUGH: I'm Hugh, I'm twelve years old,
and I really like robotics and 3D modelling.
Thank "Hugh" for being here.
- (SNIGGERS) - (ALL APPLAUDING)
Okay, well, before we put your Shop Class talents to the test,
let's meet the skilled panel of judges who'll be deciding your fate.
BRITTANY: Yeah. Woo!
JUSTIN: Look at that.
(APPLAUDING)
First up is an award-winning maker and architect, Brooks Atwood.
Our next judge is an interior designer and home decor expert, Ms. Lauren Makk.
Hi, guys!
And finally, please welcome guest judge
from Walt Disney Imagineering, Todd Neubrand.
(ALL APPLAUDING)
I'm Todd Neubrand. I'm a dimensional designer.
Dimensional design is also known as the model shop.
It's often the first opportunity to get a 3D look at some new ideas.
I've worked on Splash Mountain for Walt Disney World in Florida
and Port Discovery for Tokyo DisneySeas.
All right, are you ready to find out what you're doing?
- Yes! - Yeah.
Teachers, grab a pushcart and bring it back to your workstations.
Okay.
All right, teachers. On the count of three,
I would like you to pull those tarps. Are you ready?
- ELLIE: Of course we are! - JUSTIN: Right? I know! I know!
One, two, three.
You see a bunch of wood, some lose screws. You are going to reimagine
your very own...
- picnic table. There you go. - (ALL CHEERING)
- I know your minds are blown. - (IMITATES EXPLOSION)
KELLY: Everyone around me is kind of giddy and happy
because that's a very fun thing to construct and make your own.
So for this challenge, each team is tasked with contemporizing the picnic table.
It should be a true outdoor centerpiece that reflects your team's personality.
It should provide seating for all three judges
and have an interactive element. Okay? So make it do something cool.
You'll have just three full days to build your picnic table,
using the classic picnic table kit, screws, and wood.
In addition, each team will be provided a set budget
to purchase additional items to enhance their builds.
Each picnic table will be evaluated and tested for functionality
and durability. Since, you know, it's intended to be used outside.
- Are you ready to start building? - ALL: Yeah.
Okay. One, two, three. Let's get building!
HUGH: Okay.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
As an architect, we get to go in and rethink everything.
What is a house? What is a skyscraper? What is a children's museum?
What I'm looking for here is to see how the teams
completely reimagine something as mundane as the picnic table.
So it starts like this, a normal picnic table...
- Right. - ...and you can flip it over.
CHRIS: What if we made it a ping pong table?
- Heated seats. - Oh, heated seats.
I think the hardest thing about this challenge
will be coming to a decision with my teammates.
- I was thinking about, like, a train. - Lights underneath it.
- SEAN: We could make it a boat. - CHRIS: A sandbox.
- Wrap-around seating. - Glow in the dark paint.
Or, like, a chariot.
- An igloo. - SEAN: A lazy Susan.
Both of us were talking about, uh, wheelchair accessibility.
- Yeah. - So let's do that.
We decided to build a picnic table with cushioned benches,
and it has backs to it.
JUSTIN: In addition, the Green Team's table
will be uniquely shaped, making it wheelchair accessible,
and it'll have an interactive centerpiece, a series of gear-like lazy Susans.
I think it's gonna look pretty cool in the end.
JUSTIN: In addition to building, Ruth enjoys inventing...
RUTH: I've just recently started
getting into reusing items like cans and bottles
and making cool things out of that.
JUSTIN: ...and placed third in a science fair
for her motorized model of the solar system.
So you see a table, it's like this, but on one end there's a flap
that's down and comes up like a wing.
Being an interior designer is all about pushing boundaries and limits.
And that's what I'm looking for today.
We all know what a basic picnic table looks like,
but today, I wanna see it reimagined and reconfigured.
You're more wanting to add stuff onto a regular table.
- Yeah. - And not make the table different.
It'll be quicker, and we can get more points for functionality, possibly...
- Okay. - ...if it's that table.
I didn't wanna push the kids to do stuff they didn't wanna do,
but we gotta add some more creative elements.
I think the reusing part's good, but not just reassembling a bench.
- NOLAN: Yeah. - GIANA: We got to change it up.
JUSTIN: When Giana's not teaching...
These lovely scraps of metal over here are currently waiting
to be bolted into sculptures.
JUSTIN: ...you can find her in the metal shop
creating artwork of all shapes and sizes.
I'm thinking we could add some steel.
I come up with a design element that of course has metal in it.
If we add a pyramid, steel's magnetic,
and we can work with, like, a magnetic idea.
I wanted to try to get the kids to see the interactive part of it
as far as it being magnetic.
- I am not cool with that as much. - Okay. Yeah. All right, that's fine.
My group has decided to build a modernized picnic table.
JUSTIN: The Blue Team's design will feature
a large wing for food preparation,
a lazy Susan, and one long bench that can be separated into four chairs.
All right. When did we get to start? Let's start.
- It has to hold three of our judges. - BRITTANY: Mm-hmm.
But for each of the judges, we should do, like, a design.
- BRITTANY: Uh-huh. - HUGH: Like a specific thing.
It needs to be more than just a regular picnic table.
It needs to have interactive elements.
How are you guys thinking about the interactive part of it,
- this table design? - ELLIE: So I was thinking
- maybe we can do chess or checkers. - Okay, so we would have,
a thing that can slide out this way, like that? Is that what you're thinking?
- Yep. And then same with that one. - And then on this side,
same on the other side.
Our design might be impossible.
JUSTIN: Gold Team's modern design will feature table extensions,
drawers to store multiple tabletop games, and unorthodox C-shaped benches.
- Yeah. That's it. (CHUCKLES) - Got it.
JUSTIN: With the design process underway,
I decided it was a good time for me to stop by
and offer some unsolicited advice.
- We'd have to put it here. - Don't... don't do that.
- (CHRIS CHUCKLES) - I wouldn't do that.
No? You don't think so.
JUSTIN: Something I've been wrestling with,
how do you make a picnic table interactive?
Well, we've kind of bounced around a lot of ideas.
- We had talked a lot about games. - Games, yes.
- Right. - RUTH: We had a plexiglass igloo...
- Yeah. - ...for a while. A sled.
I had the idea for a...
- You know, lazy Susans. - Oh, we have that.
- Yeah, I was thinking about that. - Oh, oh! Oh, sure, man.
- Similar haircuts, similar ideas. - (CHUCKLES)
- These are wings. - Okay.
- So there would be... - Oh, it flies!
- No! - That's right, yeah.
I see a triangle design here.
This one did not make the final cut, unfortunately.
- Was this your idea? - I'm a triangle lover.
- Yeah. - Ah. What's your favorite triangle?
- I like them all. - I like the isosceles.
- Okay. - JUSTIN: I like saying it.
Since she's an interior decorator, we're gonna do, like,
flowers or something.
- It's gonna be cute and then... - (CHUCKLES) Adorbs.
- ELLIE: Yeah. - JUSTIN: By the way,
- you have the most adorable design. - BRITTANY: Thank you.
- All right. Ow! - HUGH: See "Hugh" later.
- (ALL CHUCKLE) - All right.
- See "Hugh" later. - JUSTIN: See "Hugh" later.
At Imagineering, having a solid story and an immersive environment
is the highest priority.
I want these kids to remember that and incorporate that in their project.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
So first, we're gonna dismantle all of the parts that have hardware in it.
Even if we don't have the hinges for it today,
we need to, at least, like, saw out the wing parts.
I'm thinking what we need to focus on for today is the interactive part
that's going to spin.
NOLAN: This is not a speed process.
We've come up with the idea that we're gonna build the picnic table
and then we're going to add onto it and modify it.
JUSTIN: Nolan enjoys building all kinds of things.
He even built a home for his pet Guinea pig, Winston.
These are wire racks on the outside, it has a plexiglass bottom,
and then on the inside, there's wood paneling
to keep moisture and stuff from coming out.
- KELLY: Pretty good. - Yes!
BRITTANY: What we need to do is get
- these little things out... - Yeah.
...so we can make cuts on this wood.
Our design is going to take forever, so hopefully
Brittany can give us some information, run to the mill and go back and forth
and we can be all over the place and then get it done.
JUSTIN: Ellie has used her woodworking skills
to help build a chicken coop with her brother.
My three favorite things to do is love animals, skateboard and build.
JUSTIN: And she's also a competitive surfer and skater.
These are our lazy Susan pieces. There's two different sizes.
So if we offset them and you take your plate,
and you're, like, "Okay, well I'm sitting here."
This makes sense.
JUSTIN: Outside of the classroom, Chris is the co-founder of STEAM Space for kids,
which creates engaging hands-on curriculum.
This is a project that I'm very proud of that my students built.
It is a chicken tractor for the Nueva Community Garden.
- (DRILLING) - Okay. Straight up and down. There we go.
(DRILLING)
You wanna always hold onto this bolt.
- GIANA: So you put it like this. - KELLY: Mm-hmm.
NOLAN: So that's a 45-degree angle. We just need to cut
another 45-degree angle at the right place.
(DRILLING)
Cool. Perfect.
NOLAN: Here we go.
ALL: Oh.
- NOLAN: Really? - (CHUCKLES)
Wobble table.
We're just trying to reassemble the picnic table
and we're fumbling through the whole process of it,
but we'll figure it out.
At this point, we just need to start with a new piece of wood there.
JUSTIN: As Blue Team tries to un-wobble their table,
Brittany is going over some geometry with Ellie and Hugh.
We're gonna change this shape of our bench.
So let's think about something like a stop sign, right?
- Correct. - How many sides does a stop sign have?
- Eight. - It's an octagon.
So, how do we figure out what this angle should be?
Don't we have to divide three sixty by how many?
How many angles we've got.
- How many vertices. - That's exactly right.
JUSTIN: Brittany's received over twenty awards and grants
for her work as an educator and artist...
I love teaching shop class and digital fabrication
because it allows students to take their wildest imaginations
and turn them into real, tangible items.
JUSTIN: ...and also teaches 3D design and printing.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
- NOLAN: Guess what worked, guys? - GIANA: How's it going over there?
Guess what worked?
- (GASPS) It did? - NOLAN: Kind of.
GIANA: Wow.
NOLAN: It would keep it from wobbling, basically.
- Look at this. - GIANA: It feels pretty solid.
As a team, we were able to find a solution and fix the problem
- in a minimal amount of time. - (WHIRRING)
GIANA: Good job on that.
- Good? - Oh.
- What... - I... I know. It's that board.
- Which board, uh... - That one.
Sean and I put the bench together,
and we find that one of the boards is warped
and there's a lot of movement with the bench.
- SEAN: Oh my gosh. - CHRIS: Right?
CHRIS: So, Sean, let's think about what we can do to fix our problem.
I don't know.
CHRIS: I wanna pull that board and re-put it down again.
We took the legs off.
(WHIRRING)
Figured out where the warp was coming from.
We could see the twist in the board.
- The beam's twisted? - CHRIS: Yeah.
We put the legs back on it and we just shimmied them a little bit
so they're straight, and we made sure that everything was staying level.
We figured it out. (CHUCKLES)
JUSTIN: As day one comes to a close, Brooks checks in with the teams.
How are you rethinking what a picnic table is?
We have drawers and what we're gonna put in the drawers
is a checkers and chess board and then we're gonna have a cooler
in the middle area over there, too.
I think you're really rethinking what picnicking could be
in terms of the social interaction, which is pretty interesting.
Always go back to the idea,
"Does this tabletop allow for more socializing?"
And just keep defaulting to that shape.
We're actually gonna put a back to our bench,
and then we're gonna put cushioning on our bench.
So that's super difficult to do.
The angles, the ergonomics of all that stuff
seems, like, too time-consuming for the challenge that you have.
I would skip that. Um, but, um, this tabletop and your sketch...
- CHRIS: Mm-hmm. - ...seems cool,
but now the bench isn't gonna match
- and I... that... that's a problem. - Right.
It's scary for sure to get out of your comfort zone,
but it's necessary. So I was really pushing them to really rethink
what the structure of the picnic table and the benches could be like.
We've made it so that it's now a square that would come up
- and this would be a cooking area. - Nice.
We're gonna have a spinning wheel in the middle, a lazy Susan...
- NOLAN: Yeah. - Uh-huh.
- Okay. - ...for the food. And that side edge,
- we're also going to add hooks for tools. - Yeah, yeah.
I think you guys really are, like, nailing, like, the essence of function.
But you have one opportunity here to blow our minds.
I think you should scratch the lazy Susan
and take all that brain power and make the table different.
I think you have an amazing expert person who can do metal.
I was really clawing at what is the interactive quality of the table.
It's bringing people together.
There's elements, but I'm not sure it's an... interactive enough.
Do you think we could make, like, a whole design out of metal?
- Could you do that? - Yeah, I can make something.
How can we take what he said and implement it,
but not implement it so much where our ideas are scrapped out?
Wanna start drawing stuff?
We went back to our idea in the beginning of putting a metal centerpiece
where you can stick magnets on it and leave your mark on the table.
So we got some good advice.
I think we made a decent amount of progress today,
and we've got a lot to do tomorrow. So good job today,
- and we'll do it all again tomorrow. - All right.
We got a lot done today and I'm ready
- to get started tomorrow. Are you? - Me, too.
Yeah? Cool.
So as soon as we walk in tomorrow, we'll have the paint,
hopefully we'll have the fabric covers, and we'll have
- a really great place to start. - Awesome.
And we're gonna move quickly through tomorrow.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
We're going to go with our whimsical design.
We're gonna add lots of games, too.
So we had a lot of game plan changes, right?
- In terms of the theme of our table. - Yes.
BRITTANY: Based on Judge Brooks's feedback,
we're gonna put a grill in the middle of our table
and so our table's now gonna be, like, a food preparation table
where you can grill your food
with other interactive elements for preparing food.
So we're trying to make it more about the eating experience.
- It's too loose, see that? - HUGH: I was thinking...
- So we gotta make it the C shape, I think. - HUGH: Sure.
I think we were gonna make the sides straight,
- so, like, some straight, just... - SEAN: No, no, the table goes like...
- It's straight on the sides. - (INDISTINCT CHATTER)
Brooks really thinks it's important to have the legs be different.
We are going to side the legs so it doesn't look like the leg
that is just the three by sixes.
It'll have a little sculptural element to them.
And then we also decided to get rid of the backs of our bench.
CHRIS: We want it to be fun.
Something that might make it exciting to use, what could that be?
We wanted to add something a little bit more interactive,
so we decided to make one of the benches a bean bag game.
We're gonna cut the bench in half and fold it down.
- Ooh! - Right? And then...
That would be cool.
GIANA: You could also add some of those to the benches.
Do you want me to paint the benches blue?
JUSTIN: Kelly has been awarded honors for academics and robotics...
This trophy is a 2018 CUSD award, first place for robotics.
JUSTIN: ...and is also an aspiring filmmaker.
I'm not very worried about time because I feel like we planned out
and spaced everything so we'd get it done in exactly three days, if not less.
Had our benches already put together, which is one of our huge goals from today.
And right now, we just got to connect this and that'll be second,
and then we're gonna design a roof.
I'm really excited about this new roof idea.
We're going to make a plywood slanted roof held up by two steel posts.
This could bring us to the win just because it's so big.
It's out of the box.
(WHIRRING)
HUGH: We're making the custom legs for the bench and table
instead of just using the provided legs.
JUSTIN: Hugh began competing in robotics competitions
in the fourth grade...
I made a pantry out of an old water heater closet.
Now I can have cereal whenever I want.
JUSTIN: ...and has won an award for every year he's competed.
She just came back from the mill with our bench
and it is awesome.
I'm really happy about the legs because they're square, not like this.
Cute, right?
I think we're doing something cooler now, but let's see.
Excellent.
Move that back.
These legs are on hinges. You put that down,
and you've got a setup for some cornhole.
JUSTIN: Sean also enjoys coding and building robots
and helped his team win an excellence award
at the VEX Robotics Championships.
SEAN: I'm usually the driver who drives the robot on the team.
It's fun to drive robots, and... But it's also fun to see our robot succeed
in what it was meant to do.
So since there are two of these, we can do one each.
I can do one of these and you can do the other.
Um, sure.
I think the biggest wow factor will be the cornhole set.
And I think that's really going to help our design shine.
One of the things I look for when evaluating a project,
are the details. Oftentimes details get overlooked,
and oftentimes a minor detail that's out of place
can completely break the idea
of the environment that you've tried to create.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(WHIRRING)
- (INDISTINCT CHATTER) - Oh.
Who has clean hands?
- ELLIE: Uh... - Which one of you has clean hands?
KELLY: This is finished. Don't step on it, it's drying.
- See these lines right here? - Yeah.
You wanna keep it in between these lines.
- Got it? - Yeah.
(WHIRRING)
JUSTIN: As the end of the second day approaches,
Judge Lauren checks in with the teams.
LAUREN: Tell me about your design. What's going on here?
Okay, so right now, I'm sanding the legs on our cornhole bench.
So we have two of these and they're gonna be put together
and then... when they're not together...
- (GASPS) - ...they go down into cornhole.
- LAUREN: You've got a theme? - Yes. Whimsical.
- Ooh, whimsical. - Mm-hmm.
Well, I really wanna see some whimsical, magical stuff, like,
really wow me there. Dress up your table really awesome
so that we can really get the vision of your design.
The cornhole bench is super fun. My biggest fear for the Green Team
is that they don't take their fantasy theme to the full extent.
If they don't paint some fun swirls and some funky shapes,
then I don't think I'll get the feeling that this is a fantasy
and it might fall short.
How are you gonna make this look amazing?
Well, I'm pretty good at painting. He's pretty good at painting.
- I wouldn't go that far. - (LAUGHTER)
- It looks pretty good so far. - Yeah.
Yeah? All right. I'm... I'm impressed.
I mean, I like the ideas of what you've got going here.
I just wanna know how we're gonna take it to the next level.
I think I have a couple of modernists on my team,
so we've decided to go with a white and gray paint scheme.
- I wanna see some razzle dazzle, okay? - ELLIE: (CHUCKLES) Okay.
I know you're going for a minimalist look...
- but, I'm a maximist. - BRITTANY: (CHUCKLES) Okay.
We've got the cloud theme going on,
- very Toy Story. - I like it. Yes.
We've also got that going on with the roof over there,
- which has... - That's gonna be the inside.
- So you look up, and there'll be clouds. - The roof is gonna attach right here.
With the trashcan, love this. Super cool idea.
I think it's super convenient. Oh, and we've got benches.
NOLAN: The cool thing. You can put them... together
- to make one bench. - Oh, that's cool. That's super cool, guys.
Blue Team has a really unique theme with the nature aspect of everything
and I love that they're gonna put an umbrella top on it.
There's a lot of different components that are going on there
and they don't have much time to finish these projects,
so I'm a little nervous about them finishing them off.
(WHIRRING)
I'm doing pretty good on our game plan. We got one of our benches reinforced.
It even has a footrest, which was an unplanned addition.
We just need to assemble the other one.
There's always more to do, but, yeah, we definitely...
We did what we needed to do.
I feel like... with the way that our team is moving today, we're gonna make it work.
Our picnic table is not just gonna be any old picnic table.
It's gonna be an awesome game center.
(GIGGLING) Nolan, what are you doing?
(MUSIC PLAYING)
KELLY: Let's go get them.
Okay guys. So today's our last day. We have a lot to do.
Um, I'm gonna start, uh, working on reinforcing our bench.
I think we'll easily get everything done today with...
- Not easily. - Yeah, ambitious.
- Not with the list you gave me. - But, you know.
- Easily like, we'll get it done today. - No, you can handle it.
I can handle it. Well, there's a lot of faith
being put into me right now.
I'm thinking we screw this in before we put that on.
- Just to... - Then how would it go back up?
So we run into a little bit of a problem when we're building the wing flap,
it's too long.
So we end up turning it on its side to make it so that it's shorter
so it doesn't hit the ground.
So here's my thought. This support will be coming out.
And this box will be inset into here.
JUSTIN: While Chris finishes Green Team's decorative table leg...
I'm just gonna make it, uh, pop a little bit more.
JUSTIN: ...Ruth and Sean finish up the paint job.
CHRIS: And then if I was to do this, pulling the paint in one direction.
When you see something like that, just take your brush and just dab at it
and we won't see them anymore.
That looks great.
(WHIRRING)
KELLY: I'm feeling pretty good on time.
The only thing I would say I'm kind of worried about is the roof
'cause it's risky, but I think we can do it.
HUGH: Pouring the paint, it got a little out of hand,
and the paint bucket just flipped over. Got all over the floor.
And now we're trying to clean it up.
But I don't think I have time to clean it up.
- CHRIS: Can I have that top... - Yeah.
CHRIS: ...or the bottom, as it is?
(WHIRRING)
Really nervous we're not gonna get this done. (SIGHS)
SEAN: Can I, like, hammer it
- from the other side? - Oh, gosh. No.
So these are gonna go right here.
Okay.
(WHIRRING)
NOLAN: And then you're gonna be able to put a trash bag over it.
- Thank you. - BOTH: Yes.
- Ready, ready, ready? - NOLAN: Lift with your legs.
(CHUCKLES)
So this is much lighter than I thought. This is good.
It's good. Yeah, it's pretty light with two people.
JUSTIN: With all the teams hustling to finish their designs,
Disney Imagineer Todd drops by for a quick check-in.
- Hi guys. How are you doing? - Good, how are you?
Can you tell me a little bit about how you came up with the inspiration?
When people picnic, they play outdoor games,
so we just made a cornhole.
- Is that what the hole is for, for the... - Yes. This folds down.
- Oh, wonderful! - There are two benches that, uh,
two sides of it, they come together.
It's wonderful that you guys had the opportunity
to be able to do so many things with the bench itself.
- It's not just a place to sit down... - CHRIS: Mm-hmm.
...but it's a place that can be entertaining at the same time.
You're gonna have a grill in the table?
We are. We're gonna have a grill
- in the middle of the table. - HUGH: Yeah.
So people can cook their food right there while they're playing the games.
- That's the plan. - HUGH: Uh-huh.
Then we decided we're gonna add a juicer,
- so you can make juice on the table. - Cooler.
You've got a cooler, so you can keep cold drinks on the table
- that'll be attached. - And a bottle opener.
And a bottle opener.
So people just need to show up. It's all gonna be there.
- They don't have to bring anything. - Exactly. That's the plan, right.
That's a great idea.
One of the main interactive parts of this build
is there's going to be a metal sculpture in the middle
and on that, you're going to be able to place magnets
and you'll be able to put things on it.
- Like, if you find something on a trail... - Oh!
...you'll be able to, you know,
leave your mark and build your own art piece on the table.
- That's a great idea. - We're gonna have...
I'm amazed on how different they all are. Every team has taken a simple idea
and have kind of run with it in their own direction,
so I'm excited to see exactly how many of those interactive capabilities
they're able to finish within the short amount of time that they've got.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
- The table's here. - Oh, my gosh.
Take one of these. We're gonna lay it right down on the cross
- and then we're gonna drill it in. - RUTH: Okay.
Something like this.
And then this goes on top of it.
HUGH: I feel really great right now. Like,
just seeing it all come together, and just, like,
the length alone is just astonishing.
Are we just doing three, then? That works.
- NOLAN: Oh. - GIANA: Whoa!
(WHIRRING)
JUSTIN: Hey, one hour, guys. You got one hour.
NOLAN: We're just under a lot of stress.
GIANA: The roof is on. I got this sculpture in there.
JUSTIN: With less than an hour to go into the build test,
the teams begin moving their picnic tables to the stage
and putting on final touches.
KELLY: Yeah, that looks really great.
I definitely think the biggest wow factor of the design is the roof.
I thought it was a little bit risky at first to put that on last minute,
but I think we've really got it under control.
Five minutes to go. Five minutes.
BRITTANY: Check the levelness of our table.
We need to get on it and just go, go, go.
All right. If you can fix the lights, that'd be great.
Our table wasn't just a picnic table. It's actually an entire game center.
- CHRIS: We're gonna do awesome. - JUSTIN: Ten seconds.
- Nine, eight... - CHRIS: Running out of time.
...seven, six,
five, four, three, two, Ellie! One!
Tools down!
- BRITTANY: Ah! We did it. - CHRIS: We're done.
We did, it was awesome.
- Bam, bam, bam. - Give me five. All right.
All right. Hey, Sean, high five.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(WHISTLING)
So over the past three days, you reimagined
and contemporize the picnic table.
I have to say, I think all your picnic tables look great.
But are they interactive and are they durable?
We're about to find out. Green Team.
You guys are gonna be up first.
- Judges, let's do it. - All right.
All right. Ruthie, why don't you talk us through the interactive elements here?
On the sides here, we have the holders for our bean bags.
- JUSTIN: Uh-huh. - And then the bench, they both fold down.
- BROOKS: Awesome. - TODD: Ooh.
- Can we toss them in? - Go ahead. Try it out.
RUTH: 'Cause if it's like this, you know, this totally makes...
- (CHUCKLES) - Hello, judges.
- Hi, Oh, Justin. - ALL: Oh!
(CHUCKLING)
And then it serves the other purpose of being a bench.
- BROOKS: Nice. - Mind if we take a seat?
- RUTH: Go ahead. - Trust you... Okay.
- LAUREN: I'm gonna sit in the middle. - It sits everybody.
Could you show me how this lazy Susan works, Sean?
- You spin it, and the other ones spin. - He's been spinning it.
Hey, Sean, could you pass me the, uh, the chess pieces?
- The chess pieces. - That one with the little...
- There you... - There you go.
Oh, perfect. So, Brooks, do you like what you're seeing
in terms of the construction?
Yeah, it looks very durable and steady.
There's, like, attention to detail. The benches are lining up.
- JUSTIN: Mm-hmm. - BROOKS: It's not the typical A-frame.
And they added on these extra pieces on the side,
which totally changes the look and feel. They've created something totally new.
There's so many things that are here that I'm entertained by.
No matter where I look, there's something to discover.
And the scalloped edges are really fun and, you know, whimsical.
I love the idea of the game that you guys incorporated with the bench.
I kept thinking games on tabletops, and the fact
that you guys added them to the bench, it's just different.
- I hadn't even thought about that. - JUSTIN: Okay.
Blue Team, we're coming to you.
Let's go check out
- Blue Team's picnic design. - Thank you, guys.
- JUSTIN: Thank you, guys. - LAUREN: Thank you.
TODD: Well done.
So, Nolan, what was the intention of the interactive element of the design?
So a lot of that came from Giana.
- JUSTIN: Okay. - She's a metal worker
and she had the great idea to add magnets
- onto the metal art piece in the middle. - That is cool.
Where you could leave your mark on the table.
- Judges, you wanna test out the magnets? - I do.
- Get your hands on it. Oh, thanks. - I do.
- KELLY: People can leave, like, notes... - Uh, I'll try...
- ...and things they found. - Yeah.
Could you, uh, talk me through the bench design?
- They do connect together. Um... - Oh, so they also separate.
- Yes. They separate, see. - Oh, how cool.
- NOLAN: Voilà. - LAUREN: Mm-hmm.
- (ALL CHUCKLE) - JUSTIN: Well done.
Judge Brooks, anything from an architectural standpoint
- that is really, like, popping out to you? - I mean, so many things.
I love that the fact that you added a shelter to the table.
I think that's a really clever idea.
And these... And the shape of these benches.
- JUSTIN: Mm. - BROOKS: To be able to modify
the geometry of the ends
so all the benches can reconfigure in multiple layouts,
so cool. So interesting.
TODD: Well, when first looking at the stools themselves...
- Yeah. - ...I was kind of concerned.
But once they were put together and you had more people on it,
it gave it a lot more structure.
- I think it works well. - Well, I really loved how you were able
to use scraps of wood
and actually repurposed them in really some creative ways.
And I love the surprise element of the stars underneath.
- That's really fun and whimsical almost. - JUSTIN: Yeah.
I mean, you just really kept a theme going, even with your pyramid...
So we have one more design left to check out.
Gold Team, you guys are up next.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
JUSTIN: It looks incredible.
There's so many different interactive elements to your table.
So, could you walk me through each of these?
- One with a juicer. - One.
Two with the cooler.
- Three with solar panel lights, I guess. - Okay.
- Four with the grill. - Uh-huh.
And five with the chess set.
- Footrest, six. - Footrests!
- Seven with the drawers. - Seven.
HUGH: Eight with the Bluetooth speaker over there.
- And nine with the chalkboard. - Oh, and...
- BRITTANY: And ten with the bottle opener. - And ten with the bottle opener.
- And how about the leaves, right? - Eleven.
- Don't forget the storage. - Storage.
- Twelve. - They keep coming up.
You don't even know all of them. So cool, you guys.
Judge Brooks, what do we think of their table?
Well, I love how long it is,
taking it really out of the iconic picnic table size and shape
and I also love that the bench almost makes a hexagon.
Changing those things alone totally elevated outside
of what would be the typical
- picnic table-ness thing. - JUSTIN: Mm-hmm.
- So I think you did an amazing job. - This color combination
is really in style. It's very classic. Okay.
I liked the fact that there's so much space
- as far as how long the table is. - JUSTIN: Yeah.
The grill I like because if you backpack, a lot of times,
uh, you don't have a lot of gear with you.
I sound like a broken record, but you guys all did an awesome job.
- So thanks for showing us and... - Thank you.
...for all your hard work.
Okay guys, we've all had a chance to check out how you've evolved the design
and had a chance to make it interactive.
But now, we're gonna check out the durability factor
by using something I like to call...
- the Boulder Bash. - Yes!
Yeah. So all these creations that you've worked so hard on
over the last three days, we're gonna drop big rocks on them.
- (BROOKS CHUCKLES) - JUSTIN: Cool?
And guess what, Green Team, you're going to the Boulder Bash first.
So, Green Team, there will be two boulders that your picnic table faces
for this durability test.
I can sense your nervousness and I share in that nervousness.
Here we go. Okay. One, two, three.
ALL: Bring on the boulders.
- JUSTIN: Okay. - (CHRIS CHUCKLES)
That's one boulder down! That's pretty good, right?
Here comes the second boulder. And send the boulder.
SEAN: Bring on the boulders.
- (JUSTIN GROANS) - ALL: Oh!
No way.
- I thought everything was gonna fall. - (ALL APPLAUDING)
Oh, my gosh.
- It held up. - Yeah.
- RUTH: I can't believe it held up. - SEAN: That was...
- I'm very excited. - (CHUCKLES) I'm very surprised.
RUTH: That was a lot to take in.
- Any non-unfixable damage? - Nope, this is all good.
- It's all good. - BROOKS: Oh. No, that's all good.
- You just fixed it. - Fixed it.
JUSTIN: Answered that question.
- BROOKS: And the benches are still... - Still ADA compliant.
Okay. Good job, Green Team. It held up, Chris. Nice.
Blue team, come on down.
- Good job, Green Team. - I like the bench.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
Kelly. Um, any predictions?
Probably bounce off the roof and hit our little dome right there.
The roof is a great idea. It's protecting your table.
It's a boulder roof.
Yeah, that's exactly what it was meant for.
I was feeling confident about our build until I saw the size of those boulders.
Here comes your boulder bash. On the count of three.
One, two, three.
ALL: Bring on the boulders!
(CRACKING)
- ALL: Oh! - (LAUGHTER)
- BROOKS: I heard some cracking. - JUSTIN: All right.
- (THUD) - ALL: Oh!
LAUREN: It's bruised, not broken.
- Any predictions for the second boulder? - The entire thing just collapses.
Oh. Wow. Let's find out.
Bring on that boulder.
ALL: Oh!
JUSTIN: Judges, let's take a closer look, okay?
LAUREN: It looks pretty sturdy.
- JUSTIN: Uh... - Oh, yeah. It's a little wiggly.
The weak part is the welds up here.
The welds just needed more surface.
Rushing through that time is interesting. It can change the way you think.
If this were to get compromised out in the wilderness,
- this could hurt somebody. - JUSTIN: All right. Blue Team,
it withstood it pretty well. Good job, boulders.
Gold Team, please join me down here on the floor.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
All right. Gold Team. You ready for the boulder bash?
- Yeah. - We're ready.
JUSTIN: Okay, good energy, Hugh. Okay, here we go.
- One, two, three. - Two, three.
ALL: Bring on the boulders!
ALL: Oh!
JUSTIN: (CHUCKLES) What a dented grill.
All right, Gold Team. You're halfway there.
You've withstood one boulder. Are we ready?
- One... - One.
...two, three. Bring on the boulder.
ALL: Oh!
- Okay. - TODD: You made it.
- Oh. - You made it through, guys.
- And it's fixable, that one. - I don't think... Yeah.
The judges will be the judges of that.
- Oh. - All right.
- Come on. - The bench is totally fine.
JUSTIN: All right. Lauren, what do we see with the grill? Talk to me.
Yeah. It definitely sustained some damage.
But we... That's fix, fixable. You can just bend it back.
Okay. Why don't we head back and give Gold Team the good news?
- Okay. - Okay. Builders,
this concludes the first annual...
ALL: Boulder Bash!
JUSTIN: Oh, okay.
Teams, just give us a moment while we discuss.
Judges, let's have a quick huddle-up.
Our table is just all-around a great dining experience.
- That is a genius idea. - Yeah, I agree.
BROOKS: That alone is unbelievable, revolutionary.
And I really hope the judges see that.
Okay. Thank you so much, judges. Let's deliver the news.
Okay.
As you know, there's only one team moving on to the semifinals.
Our interactive points might not be as much,
but we can make up for that because of our, you know,
roof and flap on the end.
CHRIS: They all look great.
I think it's gonna be hard for the judges, actually.
I feel like the benches is what's gonna push us to the semifinals.
The cornhole bench is a pretty unique idea.
But all three of us are neck and neck, and I think it's anybody's game.
And the winning team is...
- the Green Team! - FEMALE VOICE: Whoo!
(ALL APPLAUDING, CHEERING)
SEAN: Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh, we did it. We did it!
I actually thought they were joking.
- I thought they were joking, too. - SEAN: Me, too.
We're going to semifinals.
JUSTIN: Green Team's picnic table has earned Ruth, Chris, and Sean
a spot in the semifinals.
Gold Team and Blue Team, you're not moving forward,
but you are going home
with something awesome for all your future builds,
a fully stocked rolling tool chest.
- How cool is that? Pretty cool. - MALE VOICE: Yeah!
I'm very proud of what we built, but I'm even more proud of the Green Team.
They did it. And I'm even more excited to go home and start building something
with my new building kit.
All right, Green Team. Congratulations. We'll see you in the semifinals.
- Oh, my God! - Well done!
- Everyone, great job, truly. So good. - (ALL APPLAUDING)
- Yeah. - So good.
- LAUREN: Yeah! - You guys are awesome.
Hey.
- BRITTANY: Thank you. - RUTH: Thank you so much.
LAUREN: Good job, girl.
(MUSIC PLAYING)