Red Dwarf and Scrapheap Challenge star Robert Llewellyn embarks on a new quest next Tuesday to understand the extraordinary engines, machines and structures that form the backbone of 21st-century living in How Do They Do It? – a new factual series that lifts the lid on the incredible engineering behind everyday life.
The opening episode sees the team visit Volvo�s factory in Korea to find out how excavators are built; venture underground to see some of Britain�s sewers; and learn how state-of-the-art tyres are made.
The show promises to “put the modern world under the microscope to explain the technology, designs and processes behind our daily lives.”
Each episode contains three stories that venture out of the ordinary, as the series meets the boffins who are constantly striving to make things bigger, faster, smaller or better. The show looks at the biggest ships, the tallest buildings and the fastest cars. But it also examines poorly understood and little-known details, such as how to make a golf ball and how to change the tyre on a jumbo jet.
Llewellyn also reveals how rubber, steel and rayon fibres come together to make a modern car tyre capable of travelling at 200 miles an hour. He pays an exclusive visit to Pirelli�s tyre- test chamber, where engineers work hard to ensure that even at top speed, their tyres create almost no noise.
Five, Tuesday January 8th