TORONTO (May 10, 2017) – Oh, Canada! The Great White North is marking 150 years of Confederation and
DAILY PLANET is celebrating in an explosive way…literally! Discovery’s flagship program unearths the wackiest Canadian innovations as co-hosts
Ziya Tong and
Dan Riskin attempt the biggest and baddest experiments in
DAILY PLANET’s 22-year history during “
Great Canadian Geek-Off Week”. Airing daily beginning
Monday, May 15 at
7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT on Discovery, the week wraps-up with a celebratory, one-hour special
DAILY PLANET: MADE IN CANADA on
Friday, May 19.
With creative Canucks hailing from Nova Scotia, the Northwest Territories, British Columbia, and provinces in between,
DAILY PLANET explores their extreme experiments. From a cobra-weave stick bomb spanning the length of Calgary’s Peace Bridge and robots taking the bottle flip challenge to a whole new level, to the wildest over-the-top hockey tricks,
DAILY PLANET’s “
Great Canadian Geek-Off Week” invites viewers to put on their lumberjack hats, grab a double-double, and salute Canada’s wonderfully wacky inventors and their ingenious ideas.
Befitting the country’s sesquicentennial, the theme week wraps up with an action-packed, one-hour special highlighting massive Canadian engineering feats and death-defying stunts while introducing viewers to the incredible Canadians solving worldwide pandemics, blasting off to space, and building the future.
DAILY PLANET: MADE IN CANADA (Friday, May 19) salutes the most impactful and truly groundbreaking Canadian science and technology stories – from iceberg mapping and dinosaur hunting, to hover board flying and mind-blowing underwater explorations – celebrating what makes Canadian science so unique.
Highlights from
DAILY PLANET’s
“Great Canadian Geek-Off Week” include:
“Party Like a Canadian!”
DAILY PLANET meets
Jamus Pajamas, a street performer and inventor originally from Nova Scotia. Pajamas demonstrates a few of his incredible inventions for
DAILY PLANET, including the Heart Pipes – the first set of bagpipes that combines beatboxing and a didgeridoo to be played simultaneously, the Firedoo – an analog fire instrument that creates dancing flames in sync with a didgeridoo’s sonic waves, and a completely original creation that allows the inventor to draw geometrical shapes with his voice while controlling flamethrowers.
“Best of 150 Flips”
The engineers at
Kuka’s Austin Robotics Center have been working overtime to teach one of their robots to land the latest viral trick shot – the bottle flip. Now the experts aim to take the robot’s bottle flipping skills to a whole new level – landing a bottle on its cap. The careful combination of physics, liquid dynamics, and tiny surface area create a giant challenge. It’s human versus machine when
DAILY PLANET’S Lucas Cochran challenges the robot to an epic round of “Best of 150 Flips.”
“Hockey Trick Shots”
DAILY PLANET can’t celebrate Canada’s history without the good old hockey game! The
Sweet Spot Squad is addicted to hockey and elevating classic moves with new trickery. Extreme trick shots inspire and amaze their online viewers. And just how can a hockey puck blow out a birthday candle? Combining physics, gravity, and hockey pucks, it’s one big on-ice birthday celebration!
“Stick Bomb”
Stephen Robinson is a man of many skills. In 2015, the Alberta-based YouTuber challenged himself to learn 52 new skills in 52 weeks, including how to barrel roll a plane and ski without a hill. For his latest challenge, Robinson attempts a cobra-weave stick bomb extended over the length of Calgary’s iconic Peace Bridge, using 5,000 jumbo popsicle sticks to set off a bomb that will trigger a truly patriotic surprise!
“Flinging Canadian Inventions”
How fast can pop spew out of a bottle? How far can toilet paper travel when launched from a paint roller? And what happens if a Yukon gold potato is shot from a vacuum cannon?
DAILY PLANET joins Vancouver’s
Science World team as they celebrate Canada’s 150th by putting some of the nation’s most iconic inventions to the test!
“Release the Balloons!”
DAILY PLANET gets a close up look at a major Canadian success story –
The Hardsuit, an Atmospheric Diving System built for tasks that traditional remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROV) are unable to accomplish.
DAILY PLANET has a special backstage pass, diving into the test tank to celebrate Canada’s 150th underwater!