Popular Mechanics for Kids

Our co-hosts indulge in some action-packed extreme sports. Tyler flies up to 400 feet in the air in the “Dream Machine,” a parachute-powered glider plane. Next, he flies downhill on a “street luge”, a gravity-powered board that sits just 2-inches from the pavement. And Vanessa goes kite skiing, at speeds up to 20 mph, powered solely by the wind.

Our co-hosts learn the dangers and difficulties facing men and women who respond to disasters. Vanessa learns how to create landslides in order to learn how to react to them. She trains with a Collapse Rescue Team --those called in to help with building collapses, fires and accidents. Tyler sets a fire -- to learn how firefighters train for emergencies.

Our co-hosts earn how to escape from life-threatening emergencies. Vanessa studies with Dean Gunnerson an escape artist she places in a straight jacket and hangs upside down from a crane by a rope that she then sets on fire! Tyler escapes from a helicopter sinking underwater at the Survival Training Center and trains to get out of a high-rise fire using the Life Chute.

Our co-hosts really horse around. Tyler visits the Strathcona Mounted Horse Troop whose 20 horses are trained to follow incredibly intricate instructions. Next he is dressed in full armor to learn the medieval sport of jousting. Meanwhile Vanessa becomes a cowgirl, learning to herd cattle, rope calves and tie lassos and Charlie teaches us to throw a lariat.

Wet and wild! Tyler explores a huge submarine canyon in a remote-controlled underwater vehicle and studies never-before-seen life forms. Next, wearing a diving suit that weighs a ton he’ll learn how welders work underwater to fix pipelines and ships. And finally he stays at Jules’s Underwater Sea Lodge, an underwater hotel where air has to be piped in.

Our co-hosts go military. Tyler joins the Skyhawks, an elite parachute team and jumps out of a plane at 10,000 feet strapped to another man’s back. Vanessa pilots a fighter plane and does loops and turns in a simulated dogfight. On the ground she operates a surveillance truck called Coyote that can spy on targets 13 miles away.