Smash Lab (Discovery Channel)

In SMASH LAB, scientist Deanne Bell, industrial designer Nick Blair, and mechanical engineers Chuck Messer and Kevin Cook rework scientific formulas, generate computer graphics, and apply various manual techniques in order to reinvent existing technological inventions. Their goal? Producing even better ways to help people survive potentially life-threatening events. By reworking and reformulating innovations like aerated concrete (used on airport runways to slow planes down), bullet-proof materials, and truck dampers, they create technology that, in turn, can be used to produce inventions that could potentially save the lives of people involved in car crashes, aircraft bombings, and earthquakes. The gang tests their inventions in large-scale simulations in which cars are purposely crashed at top speed, vehicles are blown up, and earthquakes are replicated.

When talking to each other, the gang shares simplified explanations of the scientific and mechanical engineering theories they're working with. But despite these somewhat rehearsed moments, they're extremely enthusiastic about their experiments. The show even has some dramatic moments when each invention is put to the test. And when some experiments fail, the group remains excited about reworking the concepts in order to come up with a technological breakthrough that will work.

The series' focus on design and engineering might be a turn off for many kids. But the crashes, explosions, and other major destructive moments conducted in the name of research might be a selling point for some older tweens and teens who normally wouldn't be interested in the sciences. They may not pick up a lot of scientific theory, but they'll definitely see that successfully developing new technology is the result of both good ideas and being willing to learn from every failure.