[Mr. C] What time is it?

[Mr. C And Crew] It's "Science Time!"

♪ With science science science time ♪ ♪ Let's al stop and just unwind ♪ ♪ One two three four here we go ♪ ♪ Learn so much your brain explodes ♪ ♪ Lessons so cool so fresh ♪ ♪ Feats so big you'll lose your breath ♪ ♪ Learning facts and real cool stuff ♪ ♪ Scream for more can't get enough ♪ ♪ It's it's science time ♪ ♪ It's fun you best believe ♪ ♪ Explore and learn new things ♪ ♪ Come and join me please ♪ I'm Mr. C, and this super smart group is my science crew.

Working together with my crew makes learning so much fun!

Actually, you should join us!

Let's give science a try with a simple DIY.

Today we're learning about rescue tools.

What time is it?

[Mr. C And Crew] It's "Science Time!"

Welcome back to "DIY Science Time."

My name's Mr. C, and I'm so excited to have you here to be part of our crew today!

(logo whipping) We are here at the Miami Township Fire and EMS, Station 29.

And I'm so excited because we're learning about all things firefighters.

Ambulances, fire trucks, Halligan bars, you name it, and maybe we'll get to climb up on the ladder.

Are you ready to have some fun?

Let's go.

-(bell ringing) -[Firefighter] Engine 29, hit "Science Time."

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (watermelon exploding) (upbeat music continues) (siren wailing) I am here with Kaitly Lanham of Miami Township Fire & EMS, Station 29.

And behind me I have one of the coolest things, an ambulance.

Tell us about this, and why it's such an amazing piece of equipment.

So this is our ambulance here at Station 29.

It is a giant box full of all kinds of technology and equipment that we use every day to help people on some of their worst days, and help fix their emergencies for them.

It's amazing.

The work that you do each and every day is phenomenal, and I can't wait to check out what's inside.

Can we hop in, pull it around, and go inside and like look at?

Absolutely, let's go inside and check it out!

Yes!

(soft music) (doors closing) Safety first.

(seatbelt clicking) (soft music continues) (banner whirring) (siren wailing) Have you ever noticed that when an ambulance drives by with a siren on, you can hear the pitch of the siren change?

This happens because of the Doppler effect.

The siren is sending out sound waves in all directions.

But when the ambulance is moving towards you, those sound waves get squished together in front of the ambulance.

This means more vibrations are reaching your ears, and you hear a higher pitch.

Once the ambulance passes by, the pitch gets lower.

This happens because the sound waves behind the ambulance aren't being squeezed together in the same way.

The Doppler effect is a pretty cool science concept.

And remember, anytime you hear a siren, it means it's time to pull over and get out of the way.

Emergency vehicles need us to do this so they can pass safely and help those in need.

-(ambulance beeping) -(siren wailing) (engine revving) So even though we're on the ambulance and we're acting as paramedics or EMTs that day, we're always firefighters, too.

So this cabinet holds all of our firefighter gear that we might need if we were to respond with the fire truck to a fire.

So this is set up, ready to go?

-Yep.

-You're hopping in, in the ambulance, but you might get a call, and you're out there, and you need to hop into your equipment and boom, you're fighting a fire.

-Yep.

-Instead of doing EMS pieces.

-Yes.

-Okay, wow.

So we have our own packs, we have our own hand tools, and we have our own radios.

And then this is always with you.

At all times.

At all times.

So what do we have back here?

I see a stretcher.

Yes.

So this is a power load stretcher.

It's very fancy.

It does all the heavy lifting for us.

A stretcher by itself can hold 700 pounds.

700 pounds you can put on this?

Yes.

And it comes out of the back of the ambulance like this?

-Yes.

-That's amazing.

We'll pull it out, and it's got arms on that lever that it's sitting on, that pickup and set down the stretcher for us.

Okay.

So it's doing the work for us.

Yeah.

So the science behind this is amazing because this allows one person to do the job of what was what?

Two or three people, probably.

So it's all battery power and hydraulics.

Okay, Let's put it down.

(stretcher whirring) (soft music) Oh, that's cool.

And then it can get really low to get a person in.

Yeah, it can go all the way down.

Wow.

So if you have a person who's not able to do anything, you can get them right off the ground.

Yeah, we're easily able to pick them up and set them right on it.

And then once you have it, you just pop it back up and hooks onto here and it lifts it up?

Yep.

(stretcher whirring) (stretcher clicking) Once the lights are green on both sides, that lets me know that it's hooked in right, and I can hit the button to lift it up.

(stretcher whirring) That is so cool.

And all it takes is a gentle shove.

You can guide it right in.

(soft music) That's absolutely minimal effort.

Step right up.

We are going to be elevating our science game today.

We're building a hydraulic scissor lift.

You'll need the following materials to create your nifty platform.

Cardboard, straws, scissors, dowel rods or skewers, plastic syringes and tubing, craft sticks, hot glue gun, hot glue sticks, and don't forget, grab your uplifting science notebook.

A science notebook is a tool that every scientist should have because it gives us a place to record all of our learning.

Taking notes and being organized allows us to be better scientists.

A science notebook allows us to go back and review all of the data and information we've gathered during our experiments.

Plus, it allows us to share results with other scientists who might be interested in learning more about what we've discovered.

Whenever you see the notebook pop up on the screen like this, it's a reminder that this is a good place for us to jot down new information during the show.

I've already added a title and a list of materials for today's activity, but our crew is still going to have lots of information to collect and organize as we go through our experiments.

Most importantly, the more you use a science notebook, the better you'll get at taking notes and recording data.

If you don't have a science notebook already, download a copy of Mr. C's science notebook from the website.

Firefighter equipment can weigh over 60 pounds, and can withstand up to 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit!

Firefighters need to be able to gear up fast.

Usually, it takes them less than 60 seconds to suit up for an emergency situation.

That's pretty amazing.

(siren wailing) I'm here with Lieutenant Dan Moeller of the Miami Township Fire Department, and I'm super excited to say that I have an amazing tool here that he's gonna show us how it works.

What am I holding here, Lieutenant Dan?

So what this is called is a Halligan, and what we have here are two different kinds of Halligans.

This one is a 30-inch pro bar.

It's got three parts on it.

We've got an ax, a pike, and a fork.

And depending on which tool you're actually using and how you leverage it, there's different mechanical advantages that come into play.

So why is a tool like this so important for a firefighter to have?

So these tools help us when we're searching, and they also help us when we're trying to make forcible entry into a house.

So how we were talking about that mechanical advantage, we'll use that on an actual door to break into a residence that we need to get inside if it's locked.

Okay.

So I think that's probably what we're doing right here, right?

We're going to break through this door, and get in so we can save someone or check something out.

Yep.

Yeah, we're gonna go right through the door.

Alright, well when we say "We," you are gonna go through the door, I'm gonna step out of the way.

I'm gonna enjoy the view from wherever it's safe to be doing this.

-Sounds good.

-All right.

(Halligan hitting) (door whirring) Fire department!

(Halligan scratching) (door closing) That is amazing.

And you get in there so quickly, and the mechanical advantage you have from this is just really cool.

But the question I have for you is, what happens if a door is like really difficult to get through with one person?

Is that something you can actually do with a partner, or get help with?

It is.

So there's, this is just one way, there's a million different ways you could get into a door, right?

So we do one-person methods, we also do two-person methods.

-Ready?

-Yep.

-Hit.

-(Halligan hitting) -Hit.

-(Halligan hitting) -Hit.

-(Halligan hitting) -Hit.

-(Halligan hitting) -Hit.

-(Halligan hitting) Stop.

So now I'm gonna actually push down on the door.

Okay.

And what I'm doing is I'm opening that gap, and you can actually see some daylight through this.

Yeah, I can actually see the other side.

So if you take that wedge, go ahead and get that as far in there as you can.

Okay.

And then I let go of this.

Now when we're hitting, I'm actually pulling back on this, and you saw it release that a little bit 'cause we're starting to work behind the door jamb now.

-So hit.

-(Halligan hitting) -Hit.

-(Halligan hitting) -Hit.

-(Halligan hitting) -Drive -(Halligan hitting) Stop.

So we're in there, we're wrapped around.

So we'll pick up the locker hook.

This specific wedge was put in here for this opening.

-so that- -Oh, to lock in.

Marry around that.

So that if you are by yourself.

-Yep.

-It just secures it.

Yep.

So I'll have you come down here.

-Am I pushing?

-Yep, you're gonna push, and I'm gonna pull, we'll move on three.

Ready, one, two, three.

(door crunching) So we've got our big break.

(Halligan clanging) Now go ahead and take your Halligan.

You're gonna insert that in there, and you're just gonna pry it open, yep.

Let's go.

(banner whirring) (door squeaking) [Dan] Maybe.

There you go.

I don't know the routine.

Before the invention of the fire hose in 1673, fires were fought with buckets of water.

Today, fire hoses are made from a nitro rubber tube that is insulated by a woven polyester fabric jacket.

Fire hoses come in a variety of sizes, but the most common size is 50 feet long!

Next, we're building a scissor lift, a hydraulic scissor lift.

It is such a cool tool because it allows us to take something from the ground and move it upwards vertical with minimal effort.

You can see here that I have one side of it already laid out.

This is gonna be the base.

We're gonna use different colors for the levels so that we can keep track of all of our pieces.

First, let's identify the center.

(bright music) Okay, that's the center, but that's not centered in our craft stick, so I'm gonna put it right there, which will be the center.

And I want my other holes to be towards the outside like that.

And here.

Now I'm going to use the drill, and I'm gonna drill through all of these, and I'm gonna apply some pressure because I want the holes to stay there for all of them.

(drill whirring) (bright music continues) Now we're going to cut our dowel rods to seven and a half inches, and score them at the mark, which allows us to snap them apart very easily.

So depending on how big your scissor lift is going to be, will determine how many of these you actually need.

So it's okay if you cut more, if you cut less.

It just depends on how tall you wanna make your scissor lift.

So we have our skewers cut.

Now we need some straws cut.

And we're gonna cut those to five and a quarter inches.

(bright music continues) (straws cracking) I love that sound.

(straws cracking) Now we're going to snip off a piece of a glue stick and drill a hole through the center of it.

(drill whirring) This is going to allow the skewer stick to stick there and not slide back and forth.

You'll need two of these for each skewer stick.

And don't worry, if you don't have glue sticks, you can use erasers, you can use tape.

Basically you just want something that's gonna prevent the skewer stick from sliding back and forth and falling apart after you've built the scissor lift.

Now it's time to put it together.

I'm going to lay out all of my craft sticks and mark both ends.

One side will get lines, the other side will get stars.

(bright music) Now, for the first part, we're going to connect the lines to the red craft stick.

Lines on the red craft stick creates an X, and on the top we have the stars.

For the second layer, we'll connect star to star.

For the third layer, line to line, etcetera.

Take a skewer stick, put one of the glue pieces on the bottom of it.

And if you want, you can make a whole bunch of these first.

(bright music continues) All right, so you can see we have one half built.

Have a crew member help you, it makes life a lot easier, and it's fun to work together.

Before adding the other side, we need to add our straws.

These are spacers and add structural support as well.

And now, add the other side of the lift and match the lines to the lines and the stars to the stars.

(bright music continues) Next we're going to take our glue stick ends and place them on each skewer to keep everything in place.

Let's tape the red craft sticks to the board.

(bright music continues) (tape ripping) I am also going to add a few dabs of hot glue on each end to keep the glue ends in place.

This should provide lots of additional support.

These purple craft sticks are used as guides to allow the scissor legs to move back and forth in a straight line.

This is where we'll attach the top of the platform to another piece of smaller cardboard.

Lots of extra glue on the platform is always helpful.

(bright music) (crowd cheering) Awesome.

It's working really well.

And now instead of me pushing it back and forth, we're going to use these two syringes and this tube to actually do the work for us using hydraulics.

So to prime your system, you're going to take a syringe.

I'm gonna fill this one up about halfway, so five milliliters.

And in my second syringe, I'm gonna fill it up all the way.

And then I'm gonna hook up my hose.

(upbeat music) And now I'm going to push all the air out of the hose.

I'm gonna push this one down until about it's halfway.

So this one's at five mil.

Oh, oh, oh, there we go.

And now I'm going to cap this one on here.

(upbeat music continues) And now I have a system that is air-free.

It's just fluid.

So when I push down on this, the mechanical motion of me pushing down on the syringe, creates pressure, applies pressure to all the fluid, and then the pressure of the fluid moves the other side up.

And we can use this back and forth.

Look at that.

That's so cool.

I've got a little bit of a air pocket inside there, I could prime it and get rid of that, but I think it's gonna be just a-okay the way it's working right now.

So let's give it a try.

(logo whirring and dinging) So our goal is to place our syringe right here so when we apply pressure, (upbeat music continues) that'll work just like that.

And then when I let it go, -(crowd awing) -it'll come back down.

Just like that, sort of.

But we need to connect this here to the cardboard and then to our system.

So I'm going to tape this down.

-(tape ripping) -(upbeat music continues) -(tape ripping) -(upbeat music continues) And now when I apply pressure, -(victorious music) -it goes up.

And then when I take the pressure off, look, it'll hold it in place.

You can see that it's not moving it perfectly straight.

So I can keep working on that.

But when I let it go.

Awesome.

And I can probably lift things like, you know, some craft sticks.

So when I build something up even higher, I can get my materials up.

I'll see what it does.

Uh-oh, it's gonna tip.

(upbeat music continues) -(craft sticks dropping) -(Mr. C laughing) Keep building, have some fun.

This is such a fun, fun activity.

And yes, it's not perfect, but that is really the best part about this engineering design challenge.

Build a scissor lift that you can lift things up, give it a try, figure out where it's not stable, and then you can lift up things to the sky.

Fire hydrants can be found all around.

You probably have one on your street in your neighborhood.

Fire hydrants are important because they give firefighters access to water for emergency situations.

They are connected to the city's water supply, and can essentially pump out unlimited amounts of water to help firefighters put out a fire.

(siren wailing) There's three portions to our turnout gear, which is the gear that we use when we fight fire.

There's the outer layer, which is called the outer shell.

So this is the exterior of our coats.

And then there's the inner liner, which is made up of two parts, a thermal barrier, and a moisture barrier.

And when you put it all together, it's called a composite.

And after every fire, we wash them to get all of the nasty gunk and stuff off, and we hang them on these hang drys, which is kind of like a fan inside a hanger.

(siren wailing) (engine revving) So this is one of the fire trucks that we have.

It's Quint 26.

So this is a much bigger truck than some of the other trucks I've seen.

Like, what makes this truck so special?

So this truck is special for us because on the top you can obviously, we've got a hundred-foot aerial ladder.

So we're able to get to areas that maybe a ground ladder can't easily get to.

So this ladder actually has a whole standpipe system that it grows as well as the ladder grows.

So we're able to reach a great distance with that master stream on top, and we can put out a ton of water with one of those.

This truck also has a pump built into it.

We also carry 450 gallons of water, as well as over a thousand feet of five-inch hose.

So we can get pretty far away from a fire hydrant and still be able to work effectively.

That's amazing.

So this is pretty much, anywhere there's a fire, this is able to help out, and it doesn't have to be connected to a water main or something like that, fire hydrant.

Yeah, we, so with how much water is on it, we can get a good start on that fire, but we definitely need more than 450 gallons to get that job done.

So we either bring in another fire truck to hook up to, or we'll hook into a hydrant system on the ground.

So this is like a pride and joy for the fire department, isn't it?

Yes, yeah, every fire department, their fire trucks are, that's their big thing.

(engine revving) So we are geared up.

I've got my safety belt on, I've got this big mega clip so I can hook myself up when we get up to the top of the ladder?

Yep.

Anytime we get up on the ladder, once we get to a stopping point, we'll use these, and we'll clip into a railing just to give us an extra set of security.

All right.

I'm nervous but I believe in science and hydraulics, and all the things that are making this do its thing.

So I am ready if you're ready.

Let's do it.

All right, I'll follow you.

(upbeat music) What's the weight capacity on this?

[Dan] So all the way at the end of the tip with the angle that this is at, which is about 35 degrees right now, we could have 500 pounds out out there.

[Mr.C] Oh, okay.

[Dan] You and I are more than good.

Oh this is just like walking.

Yep, just like walking up steps.

(upbeat music) It's not even moving.

[Dan] Go ahead and kneel down, and clip your belt into a rung.

I wanna turn around, but I'm terrified.

-(Dan laughing) -(upbeat music continues) I'm up here with Lieutenant Dan, 100 feet out from the back of the ladder, correct?

Yes.

Yep, we're at 35 degrees.

35 degrees.

It is very windy.

Hopefully, you can hear me, but it's super, also amazing up here.

It's a little terrifying.

I'm not scared of heights, but it's high.

Alright, how do we get back down?

We got to walk.

Do we go backwards?

No, we'll spin around and we'll just walk down.

We're at an angle right now where we can just walk down still.

Okay, cool.

Ambulance sirens are 122 decibels loud.

That's only 15 decibels less than a rocket launch.

But for a vehicle like this, it's important for us to hear it before we see it.

(siren wailing) We had so much fun at the firehouse, and I thought it would be awesome if we built our very own Doppler effect.

Here, I have a battery pack and a buzzer, check it out.

This little thing here, when I turn it on, (buzzer ringing) I get that loud, squealing sound.

And if I spin it around, in theory, we'll get the Doppler effect 'cause we're gonna squeeze those sound waves together and create a higher pitch.

I'm gonna go down there, and I'm gonna use this one here that has a long string so I can whip it around and see what happens.

Let's give it a try.

(buzzer buzzing) (buzzer buzzing continues) (laughing) That was awesome.

(buzzer buzzing continues) Now I can talk.

That was awesome.

Build one of these, it's so much fun.

You can explore the Doppler effect right in your neighborhood.

Have fun, give it a try.

Sound waves.

(engine revving) (siren wailing) (siren wailing continues) The Halligan bar was designed by a New York firefighter, Hugh Halligan, in 1948.

The Halligan Bar is a multipurpose tool for prying, twisting, punching, or striking objects.

Being a firefighter is an important job, and having special tools and equipment allows firefighters and EMS personnel to do their jobs safely.

How fun was it to see Mr. C climbing that ladder?

He was so high in the sky.

Honestly, I think I'll stay down here and use the scissor lift we built instead.

I wonder how high you could make your scissor lift go.

Can you make it strong enough to lift heavier items?

Give it a try!

What an amazing day, and it was so much fun working with those firefighters!

I got to talk to Kaitly, Lieutenant Dan, and I got to learn about all the cool tools they use to do their job.

Speaking of tools, if you haven't done so yet, hop online and download your "DIY Science Time" notebook.

It's a great place to keep track of all your experiments and the tools you use to learn new things.

Speaking of learning new things, this hydraulic scissor lift (laughing) was not an easy build, but it was so much fun.

I learned about all sorts of variables, things I need to figure out, things I need to change.

And most importantly, I think it's working.

So before we try it here with little C, I wanna say keep learning, keep exploring, keep having fun.

And remember, science is wherever you are.

Alright, little, C, are you ready?

Three, two, one.

-[Little C] Whoa.

-(audience cheering) It worked, it worked.

High five, buddy.

-(upbeat music) -(Mr. C laughing) (siren wailing) ♪ It's science time ♪ I am with Kaitly Lanham here at Miami Town.

-(beeping) -That's was awesome, and we're gonna build an ambulance.

-(beeping) -These match those.

(laughing) -(beeping) -Oh yeah, I'm supposed to say what you're saying, I'm sorry.

(both laughing) -(beeping) -(Mr. C vocalizing) (beeping) And today we're learning.

(grunting) -(beeping) -This is a very complicated build, and we've had a lot of fun messing up, but it's finally working.

Okay, you ready?