BBC Building the Impossible 2of4 The Roman War Machine DivX5 MP3 MVGForum

BBC Building the Impossible - Part 2 of 4: The Roman War Machine


Information
Caroline Baillie, Deputy Director of the UK Centre for Materials Education, was one of two scientists challenged by the BBC, in this recent four-part series, to re-create a succession of engineering feats from the past.

In each episode of the series Caroline, a materials scientist and Chris Wise, a structural engineer attempted to reconstruct an object that hasn't been built for hundreds of years, if at all. As far as possible they had to use only the knowledge, technology and materials that were available at the time.


Episode Details
In 70AD the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem. The most fearsome weapon in their armoury was a massive torsion spring catapult that towered over eight metres high. It could fire boulders weighing twenty-six kilos that destroyed Jerusalem's walls and was so powerful that only the Roman's Army elite tenth legion had the skill to build it.

Now Chris, Caroline, and a team of engineers and scientists must try to recreate the catapult, the most complex of all Roman war machines. The Romans had over two hundred years experience of building these catapults, so can the team manage to design and build theirs in just four months?

Roman eyewitness accounts tell of how devastating the monster catapult was - and how it could backfire, killing their own men as well as the opposition if even the smallest detail was wrong. Once the team has come up with a design, they have just ten days to build the giant catapult and fire a missile… without injuring anyone!


Links :
- UK Centre for Materials Education site for this episode.

- Expedition Engineering were Consultants for this series. See their page for this episode.

- Also at Expedition Engineering, a.PDF file with design details, inside photos, etc.


Technical Specs
Video Codec: Divx 5
Video Bitrate: 1960 kb/s
Video Resolution: 640x480
Video Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Video Framerate: 25 fps
Audio Codec: MP3
Audio Bitrate: 256 kb/s
Audio Channels: 2
Runtime per Part: 44m
Number of Parts: 4
Part Size: 700mb
Ripped by jvt40


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