{{Use dmy dates, date=October 2022
''Science Shack'' was a BBC television series screened in 2001 and 2002. It was presented by
Adam Hart-Davis
Adam John Hart-Davis (born 4 July 1943) is an English scientist, author, photographer, historian and broadcaster. He presented the BBC television series '' Local Heroes'' and '' What the Romans Did for Us'', the latter spawning several spin-off ...
and produced by Leeds UK-based Screenhouse Productions. The series set out to answer science questions by performing experiments. In the first series, topics included: 'Can you walk on the ceiling?' for which the team held an inverted walking competition, with Australians taking part; 'What will we do when the oil runs out?' with the shack in Cornwall and powered by alternative energy sources; and 'Why did the millennium bridge wobble?', in which the team built a working model of the footbridge near the Tate Modern.
The second series included a greater role for Hart-Davis's backup team of Marty Jopson,
Jem Stansfield
Jeremy Stansfield (born 1970) is a British engineer and television presenter who is best known for presenting the BBC One science show '' Bang Goes the Theory''.
Career
Stansfield has a degree in aeronautics from Bristol University and, bef ...
, Sim Oakley, Janet Sumner and Alom Shaha. Challenges this time included:
* Tall Buildings – in which the team try to make the world's biggest paper tower, complete with a lift, in the Millennium Dome
* Can I walk on water? – in which the team tries to build machines to allow people to walk on water, and for a few seconds hold the Guinness world record
* How high can I jump? – which sees Alom Shaha, athletes and others trying to jump over a model of the shack using only human powered devices
* Can you make someone invisible? – in which the team build a mirrored suit for hiding in a forest, and an 'invisible' (but noisy) car
* Can a human fly like a bird? – (i.e. powered by flapping wings rather than propeller), culminating in Hart-Davis being suspended from a one-man helium balloon and attempting to flap his wings
* Could you build an underwater house? – in which a submerged house was made from two skips welded together, with a CO2 scrubber and various other survival gadgets.
Producer and director of series one was Paul Bader, who was Executive Producer for series 2, which was directed by Patrick Titley. The series was supported with funding from the Open University, who also provided web support.
The "shack" in the programme's title was a flatpack shed, which was shown (via
time lapse photography
Time-lapse photography is a technique in which the frequency at which film frames are captured (the frame rate) is much lower than the frequency used to view the sequence. When played at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus ...
) being assembled on location during the intro to each show.