Upside-down science
Fly on the ceiling TV
October 24th
Today Adam gets to grips with the difficult bit - trying to get humans to walk on the ceiling. The Science Shack team have been hammering, glueing and welding things together in preparation for today's upside down Olympics - will any of their contraptions work?
8:30am
One gadget is the magnetic switch system which uses a battery strapped to Adam's waist and two electromagnets. In the morning's test just two of them proved strong enough to carry his weight.
10am
Adam asked the visitors to the Magna centre how exactly they thought flies come in to land on the ceiling. Do they get there by walking on the wall? Do they fly upside down and land? Or do they flip upside down just at the point of impact with the ceiling? What do you think?
12 noon
Volunteers arrive to walk on ceiling.
1pm
First volunteers arrive from 'The Walkabout' pub in Sheffield. The Producer wanted Australians because of their recognised upside down walking skills. So our researchers scoured Sheffield and Rotherham for Aussies. And we can tell you that finding an Aussie in Sheffield is like finding ice in the desert.
But our brilliant researcher Lou finally found a local pub called 'The Walkabout', an Australian pub. So she walked in (the right way up) and recruited Aussie barman Allan Mitchell and two Brit colleagues Will Parkinson and Amy Rowson who, in their own words, were 'well up for it'.
1.30pm
Mira our on-site nurse checks all volunteers for blood pressure and quizzes them about their health history. She advises them to keep walking upside down (or hanging) to a maximum of 90 seconds at a time. Her medical explanation of the benefits of topsy turviness is 'it is a stupid thing to want to do'. But this is Science Shack.
2pm
The team are putting the finishing touches (and even some of the starting ones) to the walking contraptions some of which they are building for the first time. None of these 'Wrong Trousers' have been tested yet with a human being attached.
Jem and Chris our inventive, fix-it, build-it, super-heroes have discovered that if you fix a big box to a Dyson cleaner it generates enough pull to hold you to the ceiling. But how will they get this contraption to fit to your boots?
2.30pm
Our Industrial Rope Access experts Ian Harrison and David Hesleden test out the hook-and-eye boots before we inflict poor barwoman Amy with them. They have grave doubts about them - mainly because of the immense strength they reckon you need to stamp each foot to the ceiling.
Ian says the best system might be the electromagnets. 'I've worked with those', he says, 'we use them to stick heavy machinery like the drills we use to the sides of skyscrapers'. He also thinks the suction pads might work which he uses to stick himself to glass windows on buildings like Canary Wharf. Each pad operated only with the strength of your thumb pumping a handle gadget creates enough suction to stick 200 kilos to the ceiling!
3pm
Amy is the first to try out our high tech boots. She gets one foot well stuck but becomes unstuck trying to stick the other foot to the ceiling. She also describes a strange psychological effect - when you are upside down, she says, you stop knowing which foot is which. Our hook-and-eye boots have the added problem of long levers to unstick each foot which get all tangled up in the ropes.
4pm
Will tests out the foot pumps and sticks tightly to the ceiling but he, too, is defeated by the psychological task of remembering which foot is which. But the conclusion is that this is a feasible system which would definitely work with a bit of practice. Don't try this at home - it will pull the plaster off the ceiling.
5pm
Allan swings from the ceiling from a Dyson cleaner attached to a big board on wheels and using two ski pole things shoots across the ceiling. Extremely effective (and the most unlikely success story!).
6pm
The walking on the ceiling attempts finish with a fantastic flourish as Sarah uses magnets to defy gravity. After coming back down to earth she is ecstatic to find out she is the winner! Another success for Science Shack!
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