May 17, 2015 | By Simon
When it comes to the perfect blend of science and entertainment, it’s hard to argue that Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman of the television show Mythbusters aren’t among the best of what’s around.
The hosts - who come from engineering and science backgrounds - have done literally hundreds - if not thousands - of experiments in an effort to prove whether theories exist or not. So far, this has led them to doing everything from sinking cars in lakes to creating world-class explosions … all in the name of science, of course.
Perhaps it comes with little surprise then, that the fantastic myth-busting duo have taken it upon themselves to re-enact and test something that didn’t even happen in the real world at all - but rather, in an episode of the popular animated television series The Simpsons.
For those who remember Simpsons scenes, you may remember an episode where Homer Simpson swings through the air on a wrecking ball towards a house and is able to absorb the shock of a 5,000-pound wrecking ball with his doughnut and beer-filled potbelly. To test if this would be possible in the real world, Savage and Hyneman created their very own replica of Homer Simpson’s body - from head to toe.
To create the full-sized replica of Homer Simpson, Savage and Hyneman called up the assistance of Merrick Cheney, a visual effects specialist who has worked on films including Starship Troopers, Coraline and Corpse Bride.
The team first began by creating Homer’s iconic head. To do this, they created a mold using the Materialise Magics software to compile the source files, fix an imperfections and orient the design for fabrication.
“The great thing about Magics (software) is that it can fix big STL files,” said Merrick.
“All tools in Magics were useful for making the mold. You can clean up your file to get watertight data that can be used for 3D Printing or send your fixed files to a CNC milling machine.”
Once the mold was digitally created, it was divided into eight separate pieces before each was machined using a CNC. Because of the scale of Homer’s head for the project, CNC was a better choice for creating the mold parts - however a smaller mold could have just as easily been made using a 3D printer.
With their eight mold pieces, the Mythbusters team assembled them into what would become the two large mold halves and began the process of casting Homer’s head from rubber. Once the rubber was congealed, Savage and Hyneman added finishing details to make the head feel “more Homer” - including the addition of hair, ears, eyeballs and more. Once this was complete, the myth-busting team made the rest of Homer’s body and filled it with enough water to make it height-to-weight proportionate as if Homer existed in the real world.
>As for how Homer held up after shielding a 5,000-pound wrecking ball with his belly - you’ll just have to see for yourself!
Posted in 3D Printing Applications
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