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Bustin' those myths
By Josie Klemaier
jklemaie@mscd.edu

Photo by Andrew Bisset • abisset1@mscd.edu The Discovery Channel’s MythBusters cast members Kari Byron and Grant Imahara answer questions from audience members in the Tivoli Turnhalle.

Grade-school children built a potato gun, college students chugged gallons of milk in under an hour and others found creative new ways to build fires, all in an effort to participate in the Distinguished Lecture Series sponsored by Metro and UCD.

Daniel Koch, a UCD junior and mechanical engineering major, won first place in the MythBusters contest by confirming an old Boy Scout myth in his winning video, in which he ignited a fire using a flashlight battery and metal dish-scrubbing pad.

The contest, held Jan. 22, was attended by Grant Imahara and Kari Bryon, two cast members from MythBusters, the Discovery Channel program that tests many of America’s famous myths. Students from Auraria’s institutions were invited to enter a contest for the best amateur myth-buster videos, and the winning videos were shown at the Tivoli Turnhalle.

Koch said that when he heard that MythBusters was coming to Auraria, he “jumped on it immediately.” He said he heard his tested myth, that you can use a battery and a steel, aluminum, or copper dish-scrubbing pad to start a campfire, in the Boy Scouts.

“We never could get it to work in Boy Scouts,” he said. “Through my physics classes, I found out what properties were needed to get it done.”

The myth was confirmed when Koch successfully started a campfire “in twenty-degree weather in three feet of snow,” he said.

The unofficial “Team SGA,” made up of Metro Student Government Assembly members Kevin Harris, sophomore, Christopher Boyd, senior, and Andrew Bateman, junior, came in second place with their myth buster, in which they challenged the myth that a person cannot chug a gallon of milk in under an hour.

“The general consensus (about the myth) is that the fat content slows down the digestive process,” Harris said. The mixture of the milk and stomach acid also causes it to curdle, adding to the volume and digestive process.

Bateman added that the average human stomach cannot hold a gallon of liquid. Boyd busted the myth when he succeeded in chugging a gallon of milk in just under an hour.

“I got a half-gallon down in the first five or six minutes,” he said. “But then I had to start sipping.”

The group conceded that some of their subjects could not hold all the milk down, and graphic scenes of them “giving the milk back” were included in their video.

Also attending the event were ninth graders from Evergreen High School, who will participate in a MythBusters Expo later this semester because, according to Earth Science teacher Stephanie Seevers, “MythBusters is more fun than a science fair.” She brought some of her students to the event to participate and meet the cast of the show.

Students Tim Patterson and Anne Martin tested the myth that a potato placed in the tailpipe of a car will build up so much pressure that it will shoot out. So they built a potato gun and determined that sweet potatoes pack the most punch.