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I'm Steve Watson, and I'm on a mission
to find America's most incredible new experiences...
Yeah, I'm driving a tank!
...new inventions...
I love it!
...and new destinations.
It's like a perfect vacation.
Coming up...
re-inventing an iconic toy with an extreme-sport makeover.
This guy has taken pogo stick to a whole new level.
Testing cutting-edge car-safety innovations...
MAN: Fire in the hole!
WATSON: ...to prevent this.
I take a hands-on tour of virtual reality...
If I don't come back, you know I fried myself.
...and ride a new four-wheeler that does this.
From land to water, baby!
This is the stuff Americans are doing and making.
Come along for a wild ride in search of the...
-- Captions by VITAC --
Closed Captions provided by Scripps Networks, LLC.
Armored vehicles have one basic mission --
protect whoever or whatever they carry from danger.
Today, armored vehicles blend in with everything else on the road
and can come with James Bond capabilities,
like electrified door handles...
[ Zap! ]
...tire-puncturing jacks...
and even smokescreen.
[ Laughs ]
God.
For almost 100 years,
armored vehicles have relied on one basic material --
thick, heavy ballistic steel.
But in San Antonio, Texas,
one company is challenging that heavy-metal approach.
The folks here at Texas Armoring Corporation have a crucial job,
and that is keeping people safe
in the most intense situations imaginable.
But to do that, TAC is relying less on heavy steel
and doing more to optimize cutting-edge new materials,
taking the armored car into the 21st century.
What sets us apart and what really makes us new
is we're building
the world's lightest-weight armored vehicles.
WATSON: How are you?
Good, good.
WATSON: Jason Forston and Trent Kimball
run this operation.
Transforming a factory car into a road fortress
takes two months and about $80,000 to complete.
The first step -- gut the car to bare bones.
It takes us one day to take everything out.
We've taken the seats, the floor, everything out.
WATSON: Now they rebuild it from the chassis up.
A key component?
Some of the most advanced glass in the world...
...made with multilayer engineering...
...capable of withstanding this.
That is incredible.
What is the material, exactly?
KIMBALL: It's a lot of glass layers
and then an inner layer of polycarbonate.
So that's gonna catch all the shards of glass
coming in toward the passengers of the vehicle.
The next step --
reinforce the frame with an interior layer
of super-lightweight ballistic steel.
They painstakingly cut and shape each piece
to fit the contours of the car like a glove.
How much weight does it add to the vehicle
after you're completely finished with it?
FORSTON: We're adding about 1,200 pounds.
That's very lightweight.
We add about 50% of the weight
that a typical company does
through the use of lightweight composites
and specialized material.
This special material
is a military-grade lightweight polyethylene composite,
one of the most advanced
ballistic-resistant materials out there.
Here's this lightweight material that we're talking about.
Okay.
It's a polyethylene.
All right.
So it's a plastic fiber that's molded
and pieced together to be bullet-resistant.
It's 10 times as strong as steel at a fraction of the weight.
Finally, they outfit the car with covert deterrents.
So now we're about to test-drive
this fully armored Cadillac Escalade
that's got all the bells and whistles
to get you out of trouble if you need it.
I mean, this is like James Bond stuff, you know.
I figure Q just put this car together for us.
First, I'll lay down some tire-flattening tacks.
[ Tacks jingling ]
Next, I'll hit the smokescreen.
But the most powerful tool in this car's arsenal --
maneuverability.
FORSTON: Using lightweight composites
allows the vehicle to move faster, last longer,
and just maneuver better.
WATSON: But there's one growing threat
speed won't help you with...
IEDs, or improvised explosive devices...
responsible for over half of the casualties
in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
To help combat this problem,
Texas Armoring is the first company in the world...
to install a brand-new undercarriage panel
of ballistic fiberglass and aluminum foam.
How big of a blast can this thing withstand?
This particular panel's rated at four pounds of C-4,
or the equivalent of 20 hand grenades.
Oh, wow.
WATSON: To test what the panel can do,
we'll first simulate an IED blast on an unprotected car.
MAN: Fire in the hole!
Three...
You watch for flying stuff.
...two...
That means it's gonna be a big boom.
...one.
Yeah!
God.
The glass is gone.
The doors are flying off the other side.
That thing came off the ground.
There is no surviving that.
WATSON: Now we'll set up the same test,
but this time, we'll put the shield over the bomb.
Normally, the panel shields the entire undercarriage.
For our test, we'll see how it does against a direct hit.
MAN: Fire in the hole in three...
two...
one.
[ Heart beating ]
WATSON: I'm Steve Watson, and I'm on a journey to find
the coolest experiences and innovations across America.
Right now I'm checking out how advanced new materials
are keeping cars safe in the most dangerous situations.
MAN: Fire in the hole in three...
two...
one.
WATSON: God!
I mean, you see the difference
having that blast plate and not.
I'm certainly no expert, but, I mean,
there's no glass blown out.
The blast panel itself took all the impact.
KIMBALL: The concussion is actually
what you're trying to mute.
You want to make sure that the concussion is dispersed.
WATSON: Being inside this car would not have been pleasant...
...but the shield absorbed enough of the deadly energy
to keep the occupants alive.
If you don't have protection, that's what it looks like.
With protection, you're getting out, walking away.
From the first skydive from a plane back in 1912...
to the first skateboards in the 1950s...
Southern California leads the way
when it comes to extreme sports.
So it makes sense that here in Mission Viejo,
a father/son team is turning a classic toy
into a daredevil's dream.
Remember when you were a kid
and you're bouncing around on the pogo stick --
you know, you made mom and dad crazy,
busting into the furniture and stuff.
Well, this is taking the pogo stick
to a whole new level.
A new generation weaned on extreme sports
is embracing the pogo stick as a tool
for big air and stomach-churning tricks.
Fred Gryzbowski and Curt Markwardt
are two young, record-setting stars on the pogo scene.
Whoa, my. Stop it!
Curt right here holds the highest-backflip record.
BRIAN: 9 foot, 3 inches.
Backflipped over a bar, landed, and kept going.
There is no medicine for your kind of crazy.
WATSON: Brian Spencer is the founder of Vurtego.
His company and its game-changing invention
all started with a daydream.
I imagined what it would feel like
to jump down the street going 6 or 8 feet in the air,
so the need for that feeling is really what drove me
to pester my dad enough,
who's a former aerospace engineer,
and I knew he had the brains
to build something that could go that high.
Brian's dad, Bruce Spencer,
was happy to offer his son some engineering advice,
but he had no idea just how serious Brian was
about re-inventing pogo.
I didn't realize he was gonna come back eventually
and hand me some money and say, "Do it."
WATSON: You know, this is what I'm used to right here.
Invented by Russian immigrant George Hansburg in 1919,
the first pogo stick was just
a stilt with foot pegs and a spring
made to bounce you a few inches in the air.
For nearly a century, no one dared challenge
the design of this iconic toy until now.
This is actually the very first pogo stick we ever built,
and you can see it's made from PVC pipe,
and we learned what we needed to tweak
in order to make it go a little higher.
That prototype kicked off a four-year R&D process.
The Spencers decided to replace the old-school metal spring
with a tube of compressed air.
I'm just gonna put about 45 or so psi in there.
This transformed a children's toy
into a piece of space-age sports gear.
The new air spring can launch a 300-pound adult
several feet off the ground.
If you want to jump over your car,
you'd put it up at 60 or 70 psi.
If you want to just get a workout,
you'd put it at maybe 30 or 40 psi.
Their design includes a space-age thermoplastic
and an aerospace aluminum.
The specialized material led to a big decision
as Vurtego launched in 2006 --
make everything right here in the USA.
Local manufacturers here in Southern California.
Bounce pads -- These are made by a company in San Clemente.
They're actually an automobile suspension-parts company.
This pogo stick is now packaged and ready to go.
WATSON: With a $300 to $400 price tag,
Vurtego is selling thousands of sticks
in over 40 countries
and fueling a global pogo culture.
In 2010, Dan Mahoney bounced a Vurtego stick
to a new world record nearly 10 feet,
and now the annual Pogopalooza festival
draws massive crowds to watch pro pogo athletes
bounce to record-smashing heights.
And it's time for me to see what kind of height I can get.
I think what I'll start off doing
is doing a flip off the step, onto the parking lot,
and then all the way to the sidewalk.
Backflip, backflip.
Backflip.
So close.
I was only this far away from doing a backflip.
Vurtego's success proves once again
that a garage-born innovation
can become a profitable business.
[ Both laughing ]
BRIAN: For me, like, the future of it,
when I say, you know, pogo sticking in the Olympics,
some people might think that's kind of funny or silly,
but, I mean, if you look at the guys
that are doing really, really high jumps,
close to 10 feet in the air,
that to me is pretty compelling to watch.
Who doesn't love video games?
From new fitness games for boomers
to the latest smartphone craze,
we spend nearly $20 billion on video games,
doubling Hollywood ticket sales.
If that's not wild enough,
this father/daughter team is unleashing
the next generation of video-game technology.
First of all, I'm looking at this thing,
and it looks like this magnificent structure,
but I have no idea what it really does.
It's called Virtusphere,
a new platform that completely immerses users
into an interactive virtual experience.
Russian immigrant Ray Latypov and his daughter Guzal
are showing me the beta version at their workshop
in Binghamton, New York.
So, I'm dying to actually give it a shot.
Let's try it.
Okay.
You head inside first. Step forward.
Now you can step inside.
Okay. Here we go.
I'm going in.
If I don't come back, you know I fried myself.
WATSON: I'm on a journey to find
the newest made-in-America innovations,
like this pogo stick on steroids...
...the cutting edge of armored vehicles...
...and right now, I'm checking out
the next generation of gaming -- Virtusphere.
It's definitely a completely new thing
that happened to the gaming industry.
Virtusphere's inventor, Ray Latypov,
came to the U.S. in 2003,
seeing America as the only place
to bring his vision of virtual reality to life.
Ray's daughter Guzal joined the team
to get the business off the ground.
And it's a family business, and that's fantastic.
That's what we love.
Virtusphere works like a giant hamster wheel.
The 10-foot sphere spins over a platform of polyurethane wheels,
just like the ones found on skateboards.
And so, basically, just by me walking,
I'm making this thing go in any direction I want to.
All of a sudden, instead of pushing buttons,
you are using your legs,
which is so much more natural, so much more healthy.
RAY: Look forward. Horizon line.
As I walk, so does my avatar in the virtual world.
It rotates according to the user's steps,
with a sensor tracking the movement underneath the sphere.
So now I'm walking,
and then I need to shoot these people, right?
Bad guys -- Bad guys gone.
This is the coolest thing I've ever seen, guys.
This is amazing.
The reaction time on this is instantaneous.
A safety railing keeps me from tripping over my virtual feet.
It also houses the computer that powers the 3-D graphics.
You take a step, and then you take a step.
There's no lag time at all
from what I'm seeing to what my body is doing,
which is pretty amazing.
The team is working with temporary graphics
to test Virtusphere.
They're also working to tailor hit games for this platform.
So, now, what kind of creatures are these?
Definitely Martians.
Get back over here, you stinking aliens.
I think we got them all.
RAY: It's clear.
We're all clear.
All clear.
I got them all.
WATSON: With a $28,000 price tag,
Virtusphere is starting to pop up in public places.
And gaming may be just the tip of the iceberg.
Think training programs,
virtual architecture walk-throughs,
and entertainment.
You know, you're exploring your favorite movie environment.
I mean, I don't know what I expected,
but I didn't expect that.
Today I'm in a swamp outside of West Palm Beach, Florida,
and I am checking out a brand-new toy
that gets you from land to water faster than ever before.
Yeah!
Americans have been kicking through the mud on ATVs
since the 1970s.
This thing has got some balls.
But what if you could flip the switch on your four-wheeler?
From land to water, baby.
It's called Quadski.
This thing is amazing!
Half four-wheeler, half personal watercraft,
all ridiculous fun.
What I'm looking at here is just a sexy beast.
I'm not gonna lie about it.
From back there, it looks like I'm looking at a quad.
When I get up close, it's a personal watercraft.
Neil Jenkins is co-creator of Quadski.
He got his start engineering fighter jets
before turning to amphibious vehicles.
What we see here is really the genesis of a whole new industry.
Amphibious vehicles have been around for a while.
In fact, over 3,000 land-to-watercraft
were used during World War II's D-Day invasion in 1944.
The design hasn't changed much since then.
With heavy armor that makes them slow,
these modern amphibious craft go only nine miles per hour
on water.
So, to take this technology to the next level,
Neil designed Quadski to hit 45 miles per hour on water.
We have made it a high-speed vehicle on water.
Armed with a great idea,
there was only one place to realize a machine like Quadski.
You pointed this out to me earlier right there --
"Assembled with pride in Michigan."
I love that.
Neil decided to manufacture Quadski
in Auburn Hills, Michigan.
The goal -- Tap American ingenuity
to solve the design challenges
and introduce the world's first
personal high-speed amphibious vehicle.
We were literally creating the new science
and the new engineering,
because nobody had ever done this before.
There's only one way to really appreciate
the innovations inside this machine.
I'm gonna go out,
and I'm going to ride the hell out of this thing.
I love days like today.
We're talking a 1,300cc engine
like something you'd find on a cruiser motorcycle...
That's a real-deal motor.
...to power over any terrain at speeds of 45 miles per hour...
This thing is killer, dude.
...a 5-foot-wide body to get the stability you need
to blast over hills.
You can do these tight turns out here
and never feel like you're gonna lose it.
This bad boy is a beast.
My God, if that thing performs like a high-performance quad,
but it's more stable.
And that's only half the fun. The other half's to come.
So, now it's time for me to go get wet.
That's right. On the water. Wheels up.
Now to answer the question I've had all day --
How exactly does this transform into a watercraft.
WATSON: I'm Steve Watson, and I'm on a mission
to find America's coolest new innovations,
like this pogo stick remade for extreme athletes,
explosive new car-safety technology.
Right now, I'm gonna find out how this cutting-edge Quadski
transforms from an ATV into a personal watercraft.
300 new patents are packed into the Quadski,
like this radical new take on suspension design.
[ Quadski beeping ]
Hit a button,
and in just five seconds, the tires retract.
So, now this thing has officially become
the coolest machine I have ever seen.
The main engine switches
from powering the drivetrain and wheels...
...to powering a 140-horsepower jet-propulsion system.
We had to design our own jet-propulsion unit.
The normal jet-propulsion units just didn't have enough thrust.
Yeah!
Another set of issues -- When you're in the water,
you've got a very strange-shaped hull.
The single-piece hull design
is as hydrodynamic on the water as it was aerodynamic on land.
I might just take off and not come back.
This beast hits water speeds at north of 40 miles an hour.
Yeah!
For Quadski's last trick -- to get out of the water.
[ Quadski beeping ]
Both the jet-propulsion system and the motor for the wheels
work at the same time.
And now I'm just gonna ride myself on out of here.
[ Laughing ]
[ Laughing ] Oh, my God.
I mean, it executes every single maneuver on land,
and it is even more precise, I feel like, on the water.
What did you think of actually transitioning?
[ Quadski beeping ]
The fact that it takes about eight seconds
is pretty phenomenal,
and the fact that both motors work.
Like, I'm still under the jet power.
And the wheels are going at the same time.
So, you've got control over everything.
Quadski retails for about 40,000 bucks.
It's poised to redefine our idea of all-terrain vehicle.
This is the best day ever!