MacGyver Season 2 Episode 1 Science Notes: DIY or DIE

Note: there’s some pretty good stuff in this one.

Blade from a button.

MacGyver takes a button from his shirt and breaks it in half. From this half button he sharpens the edge so that it can cut through a rope.

I wouldn’t normally include this one in the blog since there’s not much science to talk about-but I’m just excited.

Flare-based harpoon and winch.

MacGyver takes a metal rod and puts it in an empty dip stick tube from an engine. He adds the powder from a road flare to act as a propellant. This would then launch the improvised harpoon forward.

Once the harpoon is stuck into a fleeing car, Mac wraps the cable around the horizontal axle on the sidecar to a motorcycle. As the axle spins, the cable wraps around it and pulls the motorcycle closer to the car.

Mini gun as a starter motor.

They need a car. MacGyver finds one-but it’s missing a starter motor. Really, there is nothing super special about a starter motor. It’s just a DC motor that is strong enough to turn over the engine so that it can turn itself (using gasoline).

The mini gun also uses an electric motor. In this case, the motor spins a combination of gun barrels so that the fire rate can be higher than a normal machine gun.

Could you use one motor for another application? Theoretically, yes. The only tough part might be mounting…