Smash Lab is an American reality television series produced by Darlow Smithson Productions for the Discovery Channel in which the premise is to take everyday technology and test it in extraordinary ways.
The series premiered in the USA on Discovery Channel on 26 December, 2007. There are two seasons to date.
Smash Lab premiered in South Africa on DStv's Discovery Channel on Wednesday 10 September 2008, at 21h00. There are 13 hour-long episodes in the first season.
Repeats
Fridays: 17h30
Saturdays: 10h05
Sundays: 01h55
Mondays: 08h15
Synopsis
The next generation in destruction instruction, Smash Lab features a team of maverick engineers as they take on everyday technology and apply it in revolutionary new ways.
First they break down the technology to see how it works and then use their know-how to see how it could be used in a different, supersized way.
Could bulletproof Kevlar protect an airliner from bombs? Could a car airbag be reinvented to stop a helicopter from sinking after ditching at sea? The Smash Lab team aims to find out.
Filmed at their Crash Lab in California, the team puts their ambitious plans to the test and captures them from every camera angle imaginable.
Smash Lab is a visual feast of fireballs, explosions, crashes, collapses, collisions and impacts, because sometimes destruction is good for you.
The Smash Lab team is composed of Deanne Bell (scientist), Chuck Messer (engineer), Nick Blair (designer, Season 1 only), Kevin Cook (creative expert, Season 1 only), Reverend Gadget (fabricator, Season 2) and Nathaniel Taylor (artisan, Season 2).
Blair has a degree in industrial design and both Bell and Cook have degrees in mechanical engineering. Messer has an undergraduate degree in industrial engineering as well as a graduate degree in industrial design.