Supreme Skills!
There is a lot of cool content out there but the show Supreme Skills! needs a Supreme mention. Supreme Skills! is a show out of Japan where contestants push boundaries and innovate through engineering challenges with extreme parameters. Their participants are typically engineers, industry experts, university teams or other skilled amateurs and craftsmen.
We love this show! First, it's highly entertaining though a bit cheesy at times. After seeing a couple of episodes, our kids (all under 10) now beg for this show during our limited family screen time. Second, the show will definitely expand your knowledge about all sorts of things like materials, production processes and engineering concepts. Third, we think it's great to have an example of the iterative problem solving process that engineers go through with all the successes and fails involved. Best of all, the show really promotes good character traits and cultural values like dedication, hard work and pride in workmanship.
The episodes are available through youtube with english voiceovers. I've listed a few of our favourites below. See if your family isn't chanting SUPREME SKILLS! after watching a few episodes.
Bridge Design Showdown
Suction Challenge:
Ideal Rope:
