Danger men aim to take science further

Two Kiwi blokes with a love of weird science have created pretty much everything but the perfect woman for their new television show.

For host James Coleman, exploding clothes driers, rubbish-chucking air cannons and being zapped by an industrial-strength microwave were all part of the fun of filming Bigger, Better, Faster, Stronger.

The former Sunrise presenter said he nearly died while trying to make a clothes drier out of a lawnmower engine and an angle grinder. "It ended pretty disastrously. The clothes ended up being distributed in specks of cotton around the laundry and the hooks flew off and embedded themselves around the set. Luckily, they didn't kill or blind anyone."

In the new TV3 show, which goes to air soon, Coleman faces off against fellow presenter Greg Page in a series of challenges to improve domestic appliances using scientific theories.

"There was a bit of a rivalry between me and Pagey to see who could make the craziest stuff," said Coleman.

They tried their hand at modifying juicers, barbecues and vacuum cleaners, with varying degrees of success.

During the rubbish-disposal challenge, Coleman wound up making what is thought to be the biggest air cannon in the Southern Hemisphere, which shot garbage bags hundreds of metres away. "The recoil was incredible. I managed to hit a bullseye 100m away on my second shot, it was great fun."

Bigger, Better, Faster, Stronger is the latest in a string of science-based reality TV shows that have surged in popularity around the world.

Coleman, who said he grew up watching TV shows such as Beyond 2000, graduated from Massey University with a bachelor of science.