Bussters
Bussters is a science reality motoring show involving busses. Broadcast by NBC for American television, the show involves extreme driving and non-normal uses with some retired busses all in the name of science and uncovering the information not known by regular bus commuters. Bussters was first broadcast in 2002. It runs for 40 minutes including ad-breaks. The main casts of Bussters are Greg Marlin and Martin Cyrus.
Review[edit | edit source]
Busses are hard to come by. Whenever you want a bus, you just sit at the bus stop and wait. You wait, wait and wait. Then, you wait. That's because you're unaware of the timetables and are there aby busses around?
And there's another thing: the way you drive a bus because they're completely different from driving a car. Put it this way. Busses are heavier so they take longer to accelerate and to brake, you have to be a safe driver, not an efficient one and busses are commercial, say no more.
Got those problems? The Bussters may have a solution for you.
The Cast[edit | edit source]
Greg Marlin - Greg Marlin, aged 68, is an ex-bus driver over 35 years. He retired four years ago and became the cast of the show Bussters. His main job is to drive busses on the show. Unlike his experiences in his bus driving career, he obtained stunt driving skills and puts them to good use.
Martin Cyrus - Martin Cyrus, aged 41, is a chief engineer. He's also the curator of the show with a Doctorate of Engineering. His main job is to host the show and assist Greg and the engineering team in such tasks in experiments to be sure there's no problem of any experiment going wrong. He was also an ex-bus co-ordinator.
The engineering team - The Bussters won't go without their own mechanical team. Their main job is to service busses being driven for experiments. They also salvage busses for good parts to replace, they repair busses and they can also give out some conclusions after the experiment, an overview of a conception.
The Busses[edit | edit source]
The busses featured in Bussters are generally old and retired and some are rust buckets. Busses have been kept in a yard and are often used as parts busses. The engineering team comes and go to remove good parts and put them in drivable busses but some busses can be picked up and then repaired and driven to replace a drivable bus that had been written off.
The Location[edit | edit source]
The filming location of Bussters is at an abandoned airfield in Montana, USA.
Popular conceptions[edit | edit source]
Here are some popular conceptions featured on Bussters.
- Fast bus
With this conception, busses are slow in terms of service. The Bussters have set up a lap time of 1:30 seconds in a Toyota Camry on their set up track. They must attempt to beat the record to proove that bus services can be faster than usual. Their first attempt wasn't good with a time of 2:58.7 seconds so to improve the lap time, the bus had to undergo some weight loss. Some parts removed are unnecessary for bus services. The second attempt improved with the lap time of 2:44 seconds. In the third attempt, the bus was tuned up and the lap time got better with 2:39 seconds. Then, the Bussters went for broke by stripping all of the components off and ended up with the lap time of 2 minutes. The Bussters said that there can be a faster service but the bus can't be capable of going as fast as a car. All of the bus that's been reduced to is a floorpan with the driver compartment, engine compartment without the bonnet, the front panels and the grille.
- Field trip goes wrong
The Bussters investigate to a time when the school field trip ends up in a field of chaos. They replicate the scenarios through a variety of tests and work on way to conquer and prevent the problem. In one test run, the Bussters test to which is the most effective way to stop the bus. They have 3 attempts with the foot brake, the hand brake and the reverse gear.
- How indestructible are busses?
That's the quest for the Bussters to do. They put busses in series of destruction to see how the busses will cope. If busses work after one round of destruction they're repaired and ready for another round. However, if a bus is destroyed and no longer in working order, it will be removed and will not be tested again. Instead, it'll be sent to the bus yard for salvage in the future. Of the picture on the right, there's a bus doing a pole vault. The Bussters have weakened the transmission-driveshaft linkage. Next, Greg got behind the wheel and drove fast, got the bus in neutral, then back in gear so the driveshaft fell and hit the pit. The bus tipped up and the driveshaft was broken.
- What we learnt from The Magic School Bus
The "Magic School Bus" books are a big interest area for Bussters. For those who don't know The Magic School Bus, the school bus is taken through special field trips and the bus changes to comply with a specific topic. That got the Bussters going. Every episode, they replicate the scenarios from The Magic School Bus to see what will happen in real life. For instance. Would a bus be recognised as a germ by a white blood cell? How will the bus be affected when struck my an asteroid or at least, a meteorite? How will a bus cope when under water? How will the bus cope in an event of a hurricane? And how will the bus go inside the Earth? That's the job for the Bussters.
Awards[edit | edit source]
Bussters received a Grammy award for "Best Science Show" in 2003. They also won an award from MTV for "Most Whacked Out Show" in 2004. They got another Grammy award for "Most Popular Science Show" in 2005.