How Did MythBusters Work?

cannon and shooting it up into the air. And honestly, this thing is so terrifying. The stuff goes up, doesn't look like it's going to ignite, and then it just creates a giant puff of smoke and then all of a sudden, it just rips up into the sky and makes this enormous fire bomb. It's insane. That sounds crazy. But the funniest part, and the thing I would never have realized from watching the show, was that the wind changed mid explosion and all this hot, milky fire bombs

started raining down from the sky. And she and the Bill team were responsible for the cleanup. So apparently coffee creamer bomb residue is discuss Anyway, Carrie is one of the most fun craziest jobs in the world, and we're lucky to have her on the program today, So let's dive in. All right, Well, today we've got the wonderful Carrie Byron on the show, who most of you will remember from the Bill team on MythBusters, but also the host of head Rush, The White Rabbit Project, and so

much more. And now she's the author of a new book that we're excited to talk about. It's called crash Test Girl. So Carrie, welcome to Part time Genius there. So Carrie, before we start, I'm gonna say I'm actually from Delaware. I grew up with the punkin chunk and just being a thing only we knew about. Thank you for bringing it to a wider audience. And uh, I know you've posted that and the large Dangerous Rocketship Festival.

Have you been surprised by the rise of the maker movement over the last decade or so and how much do you think MythBusters has contributed to it? You know, the maker movement was coming about at the same time as MythBusters. I think that was just the feeling that was in the air at the time that people were getting really d I y and we were all right in that same wave. Um, you know, I don't make magazine out here. I just wrote an article for him

because I'm totally a fan of all maker. Yeah. It was such a fun movement to see, right, I mean we were huge fans of Boeing Boeing and Wired and then like, I feel like all of that stuff, the d I Y stuff, exploded in such a big way and and uh and I love that you sort of come to it naturally, right, Like as an artist, I've been doing it my whole life. I've always been somebody who like to tinker and work with her hand. I love the smell of you know, sawdust in the garage.

I like making things. But you know, I think maybe it might even be my little rebellion to technology in a bit, because everything you can do with the computer factor and better. But I don't really like a racing and you take a pencil and I you know, I

like building things with my hands and redimensions. Yeah. Well, you know, the new book is super fun and I actually love how you use the scientific method as a means for examining, you know, your entire life, everything from the fun parts of your life to the difficult things you've had to face. But it speaks to so many audiences that I'm curious who you actually were thinking about when you were writing the book. Who is the book for? Well, I'm not a writer, so for me, I only maken

write for the audience I know, which is myself. So I kind of feel like I wrote the audience for the person I was when I was twenty years old and starting out in life, the person who just trying to figure out how to take to how to create opportunities, and how to make big moves. Um I, I, you know, wanted to lay out all of my journey so that maybe if I've made mistakes, that you don't have to make any great I mean, I used the scientific method as a critical thinking tool, but really it's just an

easy way to organize your thought process. So I think in making any decision in your life, using the scientific method is just all about being able to analyze the results of the choices that you make. Well. I mean that the structure of the books really fun, the contents excellent, but I also just really love the sidebars that you

throw in there so weird and funny. Things I hadn't even thought about, like the bad smells that are on TV sets and uh, and also how you used things like um blacknail polish to cover up grease on your hands and stuff. I I thought those elements were really fun. But would you actually walk us through some of the smells that maybe people don't know about at home? I'm a list maker. I've always just just for fun and

make a list of things. And bad smells was a list that I had made and I was looking through on my journals and like, I feel like this is something other people might explaind amusing. Well, we had a lot of bad melbum set because we worked with like a lot of animals. We worked with a lot of um toxins and you know every being from wolf hearing from a female dog and heat to um brotting meat that got left in the fridge over the weekend. I mean,

we had a lot of really disgusting smells. I remember when You're doing Shark Week one time and we had to figure out how to cure sharks skin for stand paper, and when I was reading, like how they do that Sailey is a p on the shark skin and let it just brought in the peat. I had to pee in a cup and put shark skin with kino sounds like fish into that current and just let it um fit and for mint in my own urine in the shop. And I think that that is a that is a

vile smell that nobody should ever have knowledge of. I mean, we had to capture parts and you know, examine the constituents at the part, you know, to get to a mass gestometer so we could find out what makes them to smell. I mean, capturing marks from everybody you worked with. Still, that's it's a kind of fun to get that behind

the scenes. You know, something else you talked about in your book that that I found just very interesting was you know, you talked about your family struggling economically, and one of the scenes that really sticks out to me is how you lived in your car at night and all this sounds terrifying, but you know, you also built this dummy to sit in the front seat to make it look like there was a man sitting in the car.

And I'm curious, you know, how did you come up with this idea and how do you know, as a team, how to build a believable dummy. I just, you know, sometimes it's just an essentity of the moment. And to build a believable dummy, I've just always been somebody who I think was meant to be in sort of a

special effects world. Maybe somebody I'll actually get there. They got the way, But I just I always made things, you know, I made I made cultures of people I'm as a little kids and how aween, how every year was in same So already knew that to make zombies, it's really not that far off from me zombie. So I just stuff like one of my dad's attle news and put a hat on it and use the skeleton mask for face. Nobody's gonna come up with that's really funny.

It's probably true. So for for me, MythBusters with so much about settling bar bets, and I know you talk about it, if I know, my friends and I at at a bar and Della were actually we're discussing like could the car from Night Rider really drive up a ramp like that on the truck and not crash? And then obviously the first thing you google, you see you

guys have covered it. But I'm curious what was the writer's room like on the show and how did you guys come up with ideas and more importantly, how do you decide what not to do? Um? Well, we never said no to things. We generally are like how could we do these things? And you know we did have done forammeters like it had to be buildable and had to be visual. We couldn't have bog boogie. We can't

go find out a vampires don't like darlic. It has to be something scientifics that we can actually come up with the conclusion. So, um, you know, with all of the diversity in the room, we have different people coming from different backgrounds, and um, we could come up with being most of wild and wacky contraption because I don't think any of us knew that you couldn't do things. You know, you could come up with like I remember

sitting there the first time it came up. The weirdest, biggest thing that we could is when we had this, Uh there was a smith about somebody who catapulted themselves with a boom lift and they franked down the boom look really hard, um with a chain or something, and then when they cut it, it catapulted the guy in the basket. Well, we tried it several times in you know, its truest form, and it didn't catapult anybody. It just bounced a little stuffing. Everybody's like, well, how are we

gonna actually catapult to die? And I was like, what if we made an actual catapult? Because I'm not an engineer, I don't know if it's possibility or not. And then we came up with packing containers on top of each other, welding a pivot where the wheels are of the catapult, and actually franking it back for real and making a battle sized catapult like lump and jumping and launching it dunny as far as we possibly could, and it uh didn't work well, but it was a fantastic thing to see.

I think engineering skills made it that. We just didn't know whether things were actually impossible, so we went for it. Wow, that's that's pretty great. Well, we've got plenty more questions for Carrie. But before that a quick break. Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're talking to Carry Byron, author of Crash Test Girl. You know, one of one of my favorite parts of the White House in somewhat recent years has been the White House Science Fair, which

of course you hosted. I was curious, what was it like getting that call and and then of course being at the White House being able to promote science. Who is so cool that I couldn't believe it. When I feel my parents I was going to the White House, They're like, what Just walking into that place, it's the White House is just something you see in the movies

from far away. And actually getting clearance to walk inside and being all of the the people do you see on the news every day just walking around looking at their phone. It was incredible. I got to, you know, go meet all of these incredible kids that we're doing things, you know, by age fifteen, that I could couldn't imagine doing. Now.

I met a kid who learned how to make a better standbag by using the polymers from inside of a diaper, and he actually created a sandbag that would absorb water when there were floods and then go back to being flat so it could be easily moved and reused. Like, how did you think of that? You're leavin I mean aspiring and humbling, And at the time, it was persident Obama and just having him come and give me a hug and say my name in a speech. Felt it felt like I've made it, you know what I mean,

It's pretty cool. I'd say that actually does qualify as having made it. So congratulations on that one as well. Yeah, I mean, it's so fun to see your president just so excited about science and in all of these kids. Just that really was such a highlight. But um, I'm curious. You know, your tasks in that buildroom seemed to be

so different. You know, you're you're like making ballistics with creamers, You're building a vomit chair for making people nauseous, uh, you know, and and also making these china shops for bulls to run through. Like how do you research these projects? And do you have go to reference books or reference sites that you used to turn to? I mean we used to We started out with books on the show.

That's how long ago that we had started. As we progressed through you know, the internet is just a wealth of knowledge and it's easy to find experts to help you out in anything. So you know, we would just get on the phone and you call somebody in Arizona and be like, hey, so if I were going to blow something up, underwater, how would you do that? More and more famous. It was a lot easier to make those at a point of reference, and we didn't sound like crazy people. But you know, we we we start

where everybody will start. We start on Google or you know, smokes with a good way to find a couple of myths, or you know, just kind of follow the leaves down the internet rabbit hole. Yeah, and and and most of them turned out. I mean, of course we have no idea how most of them turned out, because I'm sure we we we get to see the best of the best. But it did sound like only a few of the

myths on MythBusters ever went really wrong. You know, you talk about the cannon incident in particular, that was near disastrous, But I'm curious about some of the smaller, like funnier things that just ended up not working on set, and how you came up with some fixes for those. Yeah, I was trying to like some of the stuff. I'm not sure you'd need it. But I didn't always watch all the episodes because I was so busy making the show that more and think that so when people have

questions sometimes I'm like, did that happen on TV? Here did that happen in real life? A lock of fuel myths has to make us still um And it turned up that was illegal, but it didn't make the show. But I said the day trying to put together a giant still to still rocket fudle from alcohol, and it went wacky and totally exploded, and I was on my own in the shop, just like feeding it with a broom, trying to break things so that I could not catch

things on fire. And I just wish some of time with stuff like that that went slightly wrong and actually made air. It was us being crazy. So you haven't asside in the book that Jamie was more diligent about the safety of magnets than he was table saws. Can you talk a little bit about that? Oh well, no, I just mean that he took it very He was tilaging about safety on everything. Jamie had these um safety protocols, and he'd walk around and give you the tour of

how to do things safety. He also accompanied it with the most forwarding story he designed for teaching cool. You can just hear about the table saw. You would hear about a time the table stock kicked it back. A board that wlintered off and entailed the man and hear all the glory details of it, so that you would now look at every tool as if it were trying to attack you and had peace. It was terrified. And I think that he emphasized magnets because they seem so innocuous.

When you think magnets, you know, it doesn't have teeth like table stoic come bad. They just like magnets. But magnets really strong, said the ones he had told tape off a finger, it could, you know, pull something from the other side of the room. They were so strong, and you know, until you along the way, I think you Gus had a really dark way of explaining safety.

I think one of the things people don't think about when they're watching a show like this is what it might be like being a woman on the set of MythBusters. And you talk about this, and you know, many times you make light of it understandably and kind of embrace it, but you know, dealing with pregnancy on set and then postpartum depression, as as well as things like being forced to wear prosthetic breast to see if people tip better.

And I'm I'm curious with with all of this in mind, how many women were actually on set, and you know, in these situations, how do you speak up in these kinds of environments. Well, like to me, I mean, it's the only woman that you saw on camera. But we

did have some women behind the scenes. You know, we had producers, directors, researchers, um are, we had a female sound downy as well, So it wasn't just me, and so it was it was definitely helpful through the years as the production went on, we had more and more women working behind the scenes. At times could have it was difficult. It was definitely difficult pregnant because nobody intelligence

to have children. Even just getting a sort of body on the set, it was always a little bit of a struggle because all the guys on set were like wanting to spy in the bushes like us, right right. Um. The hardest thing I think it was probably finding out that the other two guys I was working with UM for grant, when I thought that there was a paid disparity that they were making UM specifically more than me.

I sort of thought I had a moment that I had a little normal ray moment where it's like sweet a minute, that's not okay, And it was quite a fight to get to be paid to stain guide. So from that point on, I actually put it in my contract that if I had the same title and I had the stink job, I had not painting that I know I was reading about. That just makes you so sad. You look at places like toy companies or NPR or like Discovery just assume they're like happy places and totally

equal in things. And and the fact that you had the same title and even some seniority and you weren't getting paid that is it's just so disturbing. How did you discover that? Like, how how did you figure out that you weren't getting paid the same amount? You know, it was through casual conversation because we were you know, we we had a season coming up and we had contract negotiations coming up, and um, they're talking about how much we should ask for to get and I was like, wait,

you're getting white. It was it was one of you know, it was just you know, since we all did have the same title and think we all expected we're being paid the same we started talking about, you know, what we should negotiate for the next season, and I it was just sort of a shocking moment. For me, that's when I decided to do what you should do when you you're you're kind of out of your your league, you find expert help. So I went and I got an agent, and from then on we negotiate all our

contracts as a leagueable nation. All right, well, we have a few more questions on a kind of a different note, but before we get to those, let's take a quick break. Welcome back to Part Time Genius. We're talking to the author of a brand new book called Crash Test Girl,

Carrie byron Um. You know, I, I don't know if I've just been living in a cave and hadn't heard about the White Rabbit Project, And after reading about your descriptions, I definitely want to binge watch this, but I was hoping could you tell us a little bit about the project and what some of the more fun experiments you've

done on it are. So White Rabbit Project was, It's based on that moment where you're on the internet, you guys know this, and considering where you came from, where you kind of falling down a rabbit hole because you looked up Belcro and all of a sudden, you're you're you're looking at the space program like it's just this one thing reads, the next thing reads the next thing. So we had um themes for each episode like Superhero Powers that you can create with technology now, or Key

Forces or Great American Heights. Um. So, one of my favorites, which I believe is the first episode in the series, is called Superhero Powers, where we each pick one that we could try to create with technology, and I picked mind control, and um, it is hilarious. I looked up toward you a bunch of electrodes, find amuts of dinner and made sure that uh I, I could control him with electrodes. They were attatched to me, so sort of like my brain powering my arm and my arms powering

his arm. And then we sat down for a big, messy spaghetti and wine game. I mean it was. It was delight. It was a delayable, fun, weird show to do. It's on Netflix. You can still catch it. Um we had a full season airing. I don't think it got promoted like it should because we only did get the one thing. Well, we'll definitely be I'll definitely be checking

it out. So. Um one of the things you hit it at was this wonderful relationship with the fans of MythBusters and how some of their ideas uh lad to um things on the show. I'm curious, what are the best fan ideas that came through that that you might remember, or what are the best interactions you've had with fans? Oh, you know, with the message boards and with our relationship

with them. You know, we could constantly talking with the fans, and you know, even if we did an episode that they didn't like our methodology or how did it, we would go back and revisit it and do it again because you know, we would actually be talking with them on the message sports. But I remember my favorite was a fourth grade class found this ancient myths about paper being used as armor in ancient China. I was obsessed with it. So I pitched it and pitched it and

pitched it until they did it. And you know, we made a whole student armor out of paper, and we tested it with arrows and with swords, and we did it with a medal as well, and found out the paper actually was a viable option up until you know, guns were invented. But that was from a fourth grade class, and who was just you know, they're like, let's been this Midbusters. I love that. That's pretty awesome, you know, and and hearing about, you know, working with kids, and

and hearing questions from kids. I'm curious about the projects. I know you do projects with your daughter. Can you tell us a little bit about some of those. Um, well, my daughter and I do a lot of projects right now. We're even just slime. Like we're with you on that. My counter is covered with shaving cream and glue and glitter. That's I would say, our current passion. Yeah, I hear you on that. We've got a room, a craft room

full of slime of giant. I'm curious now whether Elmer's sells more glue for school use or more glue for slime. I remember even looking it up online to order another bottle of it, and even in the description of what Elmer's glue is, it says great for making slimees. I think you can see how much the business has has changed. Oh my god, we should and slime about a year ago. Higher that are just people wishing slime. I'm like, what, Carrie, tell us, what's next? But what's the next big project

that you're excited about? All right, Well, I am still doing TV I've got a bunch of diffinent works I can't talk about. But what I can talk about is the next checkmark on my bucket list. Um, now that there's book things over with, I want to make toys. So I have just recently joined a startup called Smart Girls. Um. It is a scrappy startup. It's it's ethosis that it's trying to teach computer science two girls who might otherwise not be engaged. You're interested in it. So I we

make coding robot dolls for girls. Um, it's it's called Smart Girls. So I go check this out. There is a really cool self balancing segway Barbie. That's our first project, and we have a million toys coming up in line that are really really wild. Um, I'm gonna be a toymaker. That is so much fun. It seems like you have enough projects going right now, Carrie. I I don't think you need to handle that much more. This is all really fun and really exciting, and I hope our listeners

will check out your new book, Crash Test Girl. But Carrie, thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you guys. It fun talking to you. Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of how stuff works, and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the important things we couldn't even begin to understand. Tristan McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song and does the MIXI MIXI sound thing. Jerry Rowland does

the exact producer thing. Gabe Louesier is our lead researcher, with support from the Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve. Jeff Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe, And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe you could leave a good review for us. Did we? Did we forget Jason? Jason who