The show looks at natural animal and human armour as well as armour humans have invented themselves. Since Marc and I are the resident engineers (like, the guys who get their hands dirty), we got to make, test and even try on, all sorts of armour from hides to bulletproof vests.

The original idea was to set up an experiment to test protective suits and armour, or in other words, to make some kind of repeatable test for comparing how the armours stood up to impacts of different kinds. We took our idea from experimental machines that are used in material testing to assess the hardness or toughness of materials: you take a sample and hit it with a sharp point attached to a heavy pendulum.

Of course, we found out when we cobbled together our own pendulum at the Mechanical Engineering Building at the University of Alberta, it was really hard to compare the different impacts when they hit a dummy dressed in armour. That darn dummy just wouldn’t sit still! But boy did it take a lot of punishment.

We affectionately named the dummy “Lance” – something about Sir Lancelot and him being lanced over and over in the chest. Lance actually came with us to the other filming locations – he rode shotgun with Marc and looks great in shades. We tried to convince Marc that he and Lance would make fantastic crash test dummies in Marc’s sporty little Yaris, but he didn’t go for it. Maybe on another episode…

Generally Lance was good about not complaining too much when the pendulum armed with a spear point slammed into him over and over. When he was wearing just leather and hides, he ended up with some nasty holes in his chest. After the pendulum tests we got to shoot Lance up, blow some holes in Lance with a 19th century percussion rifle, a crossbow, and some other small arms. It was a rough, rough day for Lance.

We finished with him getting tied to a tree and being battered to bits by a very nasty fellow dressed in his own suit of armour (you’ll have to watch the show to see what I’m talking about). Hey, that’s the kind of sacrifices guys like Lance are willing to make for Project X. What a team player.

Next we were off to Ontario to a real blacksmith to make armour the hard way. Our blacksmith friend makes it look really easy, partly because I bet he could bench press a school bus in a pinch. I almost got my fingers squished when trying to roll the hammer marks out of the breastplate we were working on. We managed to destroy the breastplace first in the rifle range in Edmonton, then make a new one a week later in Ontario – but through the magic of TV editing, we make it look like the same one. Sneaky eh? You wouldn’t believe the air quality in his shop in the winter when it fills with coal smoke and the doors are closed.

The last task for Marc and I was to take still photos for some computer graphics scenes that were a take off on the movie 300. We did that in Toronto that where they had us dressing in some crazy getups. Marc figured I would be invincible in plate armour, so he whacked me pretty hard with the medieval axe. Ouch – those knights must have had a pretty high pain threshold. Don’t try this at home kids! We were joking around doing swordplay with real swords, and that plate neck protector I was wearing was all that kept the studio from being horribly messed up with a lot of engineer’s blood.

I'll will sign off here. I know I can’t compete with Jenn’s loquacity ;) You’ll just have to see the show yourselves.