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| Mechanical Engineering's Cliff Stover will be featured on the cable television show ?Junkyard Mega-Wars? on Feb. 3. Here is Stover with the dragboat his team creates. |
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| Stover (second from the left) and his “Junkyard Mega-Wars” teammates in the junkyard. |
In the university's engineering labs, faculty associate/projects lab director Cliff Stover is intimately familiar with the theory and principles behind mechanics. He recently put that knowledge to the test in the cable television show ?Junkyard Mega-Wars.?
On ?Junkyard Mega-Wars,? two eclectic teams of builders and artisans are given only 10 hours to create large, complex machines from nothing but junkyard refuse. In Stover?s episode, which premiers Tuesday, Feb. 3, at 10 p.m. on TLC (The Learning Channel), the teams built drag boats that race through a 200-yard straightaway. Stover worked on the engine and drive train of the contraption.
?It was a fun learning experience,? says Stover, who took part in the competition this summer in triple-digit heat. ?You?re thrown into a junkyard with people you don?t know, then suddenly they turn you loose and you?ve got just 10 hours to build something out of nothing.?
To find out how Stover?s team?s drag boat performs, watch TLC on Feb. 3 at 10 p.m. or Feb. 8 at 3 p.m. Look for the Cal Poly Pomona patches Stover wears on the show, courtesy of the Bronco Bookstore.