Supreme Skills!

How fast can a human-powered bicycle go? The annual World Human Powered Speed Challenge attracts leading engineers from around the world to find out. Last year's record was 139.45km/h. In the fall of 2016, a Japanese team competed for the first time, spending 10 months to develop their entry. Encountering unexpected accidents and obstacles, they find themselves in a tight spot. But through undaunted perseverance, the Japanese engineers and rider ultimately achieve a nearly miraculous result! Join Chihara Junior and the Supreme Skills! team as they document this grand adventure in the American desert.

How fast can a human-powered bicycle go? The annual World Human Powered Speed Challenge attracts leading engineers from around the world to find out. In the fall of 2016, a Japanese team competed for the first time, spending 10 months to develop their entry. Encountering unexpected accidents and obstacles, they find themselves in a tight spot. But through undaunted perseverance, the Japanese engineers and rider ultimately achieve a nearly miraculous result! Join Chihara Junior and the Supreme Skills! team as they travel to the American desert to document this great adventure, where bicycles go faster than 100km/h!

A National Institute takes part in the program for the first time! The science team is comprised of researchers that develop new materials to support Japan. Facing them is the technical team comprised of skilled workers boasting some of the best engineering techniques in Japan. Their aim is "ultimate sliding"; that is, to reenact the scene in the movies of a glass sliding down a bar. The teams slide heavy coasters weighing 2 kilograms down a special bar 15 meters long! Which team will demonstrate the best low-friction techniques?!

Low friction techniques for extreme sliding without lubricants! The teams take contrasting approaches to this problem, seeking a solution that could lead to revolutionary processes. A team of researchers developing new materials at a national research institute and a team of skilled workers boasting the best engineering techniques in modifying race car parts reenact the scene from the movies of a glass sliding down a bar. Using very heavy coasters weighing 2 kilograms, the teams vie for the impossible goal of sliding it all the way down a bar 15 meters long! Which team will win?!

ver wish you could crawl along a wall like Spiderman? In this episode of Supreme Skills! we focus on suction pads that attach to various surfaces using vacuum technology. Relying on ordinary household power, 2 teams compete to develop pads that can support the weight of a man hanging and moving along ceilings made of various materials. One team consists of engineers who work for Japan's oldest manufacturer of vacuum equipment. The other is a team of technical college students who are inspired by the cartoon robot-cat Doraemon. Averaging just 25 years old, members of both teams promise a fierce fight!

Ever wish you could crawl along a wall like Spiderman? Using vacuum technology, 2 teams compete to create suction pads that will support the hanging weight of a full-grown man. One team is made up of engineers who work for Japan's oldest manufacturer of vacuum equipment. The other is a team of technical college students who are inspired by the cartoon robot-cat Doraemon. In this concluding segment, they must support a man hanging from ceilings made of textured iron plate, giant pipes and dry, air-permeable logs. Averaging just 25 years old, members of both teams promise a fierce fight! Don't miss the amazing outcome!

In this Dream Come True Special, skilled craftsmen take on 2 viewer requests. First, the top experts in Japan take on a challenge to develop a Japan-made swimfin that can break with world finswimming records. The requester, one of the top finswimming athletes in Japan, attempts to set a new speed record, and the result is...?! For the second request, ladies from Iwate Prefecture, one of the areas hit by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, want a tool that can get Japanese walnuts out of their hard shells in large, unbroken pieces. A genius tool-maker takes on this challenge with unbelievable innovation. In the end, will a dream tool be born?!

Japan has won first place in several worldwide paper airplane contests over the years. That's why Supreme Skills! decided to hold a contest for paper plane researchers and devotees throughout Japan to see who's best at designing and flying them! Competing planes have to fly straight, make turns, and complete full circles to pass through target cubes in a display of extreme aerobatics. And of course, there's plenty of human drama, too, including a professor envious of an amateur devotee, and a man who quit his day job to become a professional paper plane designer. 3 supremely skillful contestants face off in the finals. Who will win?

The site for this episode of Supreme Skills! is a quarry located deep in the mountains of Japan. In the most dangerous contest we've ever held, a blasting team and water jet team compete to blast or cut their way through 2 concrete walls as quickly and safely as possible. Their mission: to save a hypothetical dog trapped in a collapsed building. To succeed, they must open holes in reinforced concrete and create a rescue route. Can they develop the power and speed they need? Can they conquer the super-strong concrete and come to the rescue? Which team will win?

Our challenge this time is a drone that can fly safely in 20 meter-per-second wind -- the speed of a typhoon! Talented Japanese craftsmen tackle this tough problem with supreme skills, aiming to advance drone technology to even greater heights. A company at the cutting edge of the drone industry battles head-to-head with a researcher who has invented many unique new drones. In the maze of crosswinds, headwinds and updrafts that awaits them, will their drones fly without crashing? Or will the unthinkable happen during the competition? Which team will win in the end?

Have you ever seen a glass sway in the wind? In this episode of Supreme Skills!, Japanese glassmaker Takahito Komure takes on the challenge of recreating a 120-year-old Venetian wine glass. Supposedly, it sways in the wind! But can a glass actually do that? Komure travels to Venice to witness the beauty of the legendary wine glass and discovers an example of craftsmanship unique to the rest of the world. Even local glassmakers have not been able to recreate this wine glass. Can a Japanese glassmaker unravel the secrets behind this Venetian glass? As Komure rises to the challenge, he faces incredible obstacles. Can he recreate the legendary wine glass?

Less than 1,000 days remain until the Tokyo Olympics. Supreme Skills! gets deeply involved in the white-hot competition of sports equipment development! It's been more than 50 years since Japan was successful in the women's discus throw. Sports engineers and skilled craftsmen work together to support a young Japanese woman who hopes to win gold in 2020. Also, Japan failed to win a medal in archery in the 2016 Rio Olympics. An imaginative small-factory owner in Tokyo comes up with some fantastic innovations to revive Japanese bow manufacturing and give Japanese archers a shot at redemption. Guest hosts in this episode include hammer and discus throwing legend Yuka Murofushi, and hurdler Dai Tamesue, a veteran of 3 successive Olympic Games. Expect the unexpected, and enjoy behind-the-scenes Olympic stories!