how are the contestants selected? & how many apply to join the challange?

-- steve martin (steve@martine.scraeming.net), September 25, 2000

Answers

We haven't decided exactly what we will do this year (we haven't even be commissioned to make a new series which is the first step). What happened last year is probably the best guide. The first stage was the potential Scrapheapers filled out an application form (which required some personal information and some information about their skills) and made a video introducing themselves. We received several hundred of these and I guess we will get even more this year, as Scrapheap Challenge is gathering momentum. We had two people spending a month going through these looking at every video. What we are looking for teams with a good selection of skills (we always need one person on each team who is a good welder) and a good slant to the team (e.g. they are all surfers / busdrivers / brothers / balding).

We then get the best applicants in for an audition. We set the teams a few simple engineering challenges (stuff that can be done in an office - building a bridge out of paper, or whatever else we can dream up). What we are looking for is teams that interact well (spark off each other), can explain what they are doing and come up with interesting solutions to problems.

-- Andy Bell (andy.bell@rdfmedia.com), October 02, 2000.