HOW IT WORKS | Lego, Skyscrapers, Cake, Jacket | Episode 7 | Free Documentary

the show that reveals how extraordinary items in our world are designed constructed and produced see the engineering the technology and big ideas that make the world go round find out how it works [Music] coming up skyscrapers how to giant towers were built by one and a half thousand workers in just 18 months making a winter warmer how 30 million feathers are stuffed into 200 down jackets and chocolate heaven how a Viennese factory makes a cake fit for a king but first leggo the old toys are definitely the best and Lego is so popular that despite only having been invented 50 years ago it's been voted toy of the century twice most Lego begins life as tiny granules of plastic at this Factory in Denmark there are 14 silos full of different colors containing 33 tonnes in total pipes suck the granules out of the silos on their way to be melted down molded into bricks and then built into spaceships castles and farmyard animals [Music] in this hall there are over a thousand machines making the bricks 24 hours a day but there's not a single person in sight the machines melt the granules at 232 degrees Celsius shape them cool them down and then spit them out into the containers below all in under 10 seconds [Music] this rapid process helps Lego to make 1.7 million bricks every hour that adds up to an enormous 15 billion a year the factory is almost completely automated when a container is full or a Baltic car collects it and takes it to the storage Hall in the vast hall another automated system takes each crate which specified shelf but Lego isn't just a bunch of plastic bricks the world of Lego is populated with all kinds of tiny people this machine spits out 15,000 heads an hour [Music] a rubber-stamp gives the heads of face smiles for the good guys scowls for the baddies the bodies are made and painted just like the heads and this as well will be joined together fireman will get their uniforms Knights don their armor and pirates will be given their plastic wooden legs you might not recognize this well-known character at the moment but all will be revealed when a camera spots a school uniform the wrong way around the body is ejected by a blast of air to come round again as the heads and bodies are attached a Lego Harry Potter appears in another part of the factory a designer has got the job of thinking up yet another new way to put the bricks together the boffins have worked out that with just six regular bricks there are over 900 million combinations so he's got no excuses for drawing a blank but box sets are smooth potatoes compared to the huge sculptures in Legoland a hundred and twenty full-time designers work in warehouses to create everything and anything they can conjure up in their Lego driven Minds if you thought a pyramid was tricky to build just imagine trying to make one V's even with computers to guide them it's a complicated and time-consuming business with thousands of bricks being used for each model it can take up to a month to build one Lego has made its name by being simple but some of the sculptures it can be used to create are anything but its versatility is the key to its enduring appeal and it's helped Lego sell an amazing 200 billion bricks worldwide [Music] the skylines of the world's biggest cities are dominated by skyscrapers building one is a construction project on a massive scale but they like a challenge here in Munich so they decided to build to each over a hundred meters high in just 18 months a crane driver carefully lifts the first elements into place it comes as no surprise that when building a huge Tower all of the parts that are used are also huge this is no exception it's a giant nine meter steel strut the struts are fixed at an angle which allows them to bear more weights than if they were vertical a pair will be fixed to both ends of each level and will support two floors of the tower [Music] all that's used to hold them in position a nuts-and-bolts but these massive bolts can't be tightened with a spanner they use an electric drill to make sure they're firmly in place the next elements to be lifted into place are the pillars these are made of steel - and weigh a whopping 24 tons each they'll be fixed on top of each other in eight columns they allow the weight of the tower to be channeled from the top straight down to the Foundation's where it can be absorbed the crane driver lowers a section of column into position and the worker below has the daunting task of guiding it into place [Music] the final piece of the framework is a colossal reinforced steel joist known in the business as an rsj the rsjs sit on top of the struts and columns and when they are welded to the rest of the frame their incredible strength allows them to hold the whole structure together every day up to ten trucks full of concrete arrive at the site it's hoisted up and then used to fill the steel columns it doesn't only strengthen them it also makes them fire resistant the towers floors are made of concrete too but before it's added the floor is reinforced with steel mesh down below it's time for the windows to go in they need to fit 125 of these massive panes on each floor they're up against the clock but it's not a job that can be rushed each one weighs 600 kilos as soon as a floor has its windows in place an army of interior fitters move in every job has to be done quickly and precisely one delay from any one of them will slow everyone down and could have a knock-on effect on the whole project when all of their work is done they can fit the floor tiles 13 months into the mammoth project all of the towers floors are completed and it can hoist up the glass elevators each cabin weighs four and a half tons and have to be lifted right to the top of the 130 meter lift shaft it takes a considerable time to get them to the top safely but when they're operational they'll be moving a lot faster over ten miles an hour it'll take them just 25 seconds to ascend to the top of the tallest tower [Music] the two towers look like they're completely finished but they're going to be connected together a series of bridges will link different floors so that the office workers will be able to move between them a crane lifts one of the bridges up but they need a guide rope so they can get it into position without smashing all the windows [Music] at the top of the towers a team of fixing a steel frame it'll support an enormous fan of glass to top off the buildings it's a special moment for all of the workers that they prepare for the final choice to be lifted into place and to commemorate it in traditional style it was a monumental task but over 18 months 1500 workers have truly risen to the challenge they've created two towers with 61 floors between them and a combined floor space of over 60,000 square meters [Music] coming up calorie heaven creating the king of cakes and down jackets 150,000 feathers are stuffed into each one to make them one of the warmest money can buy you [Music] [Music] we all love cake especially chocolate cake and this is one of the most luxurious chocolate cakes in the world the Sascha Viennese chocolate torte [Music] everyone knows you can't make a cake without breaking a few eggs and here's a lady who knows better than most she helps to break and separate over a million eggs every year the whites are beaten until they form soft peaks in the next mixer is the cake mix this is not health food along with the yolks and flour there is a generous dose of butter chocolate and sugar the vat gets emptied into dozens of 21 centimeter cake tins ready to be baked just like you might do at home but here they bake 180 cakes at a time they go into the oven for an hour at 190 degrees that's gas mark 5 if you haven't bought nothin for a few years when they're baked a two-man production line gets the cakes out of the tins as quickly as possible if they're left too long the mix will stick to the tin and the cake will be ruined this machine slices the cakes with a thin wire leaving two perfect halves every time [Music] it's the filling that gives these cakes their distinct taste barrels of sweet and sticky apricot jam are heated in these parts and then spooned onto the base it's looking like a bit of a mess as the confectioner dollops it on with abandon but that's not a problem as the whole cake is about to be smeared all over with the gooey sauce any dieters who have made it this far look away now it's time for the final layer of the cake lashings of dark chocolate sauce they left to cool and then they're ready to be packed like all of the ingredients that go into the cake itself only the finest is good enough and that means an elegant wooden box the love care and sheer number of calories that go into making a Sascha Viennese chocolate torte will ensure that it won't stay in the box for long [Music] there are a few things that will keep you warmer in winter than a couch made with goose down to make them this Factory only uses the smallest and fluffiest inner feathers these natural insulators are super soft and are known as down the down is whirled around in a sift earth dust and any broken feathers fall to the floor and only the healthiest feathers get sucked up the pipe on their way to a spin wash a very mild detergent is used at 40 degrees to get all the dirt out nearly 20 kilos of dirt and grease has come out of the feathers and now it's on to the dryer so the feathers won't rot the feathers are blown around these containers at 100 degrees Celsius after 20 minutes they're dry and ready to be used but first they've got to be sorted by size there's an Airstream in the machine which blows the feathers around the streams only strong enough to lift the lighter down so the larger feathers fall to the ground the same thing happens in the next box this time to catch the medium feathers the medium-sized feathers go off to be stuffed into pillows and the larger ones are destined to be used as fertilizer [Music] after 15 minutes of the feathers assorted the smallest most valuable down has collected at the top it's put into a sack and taken off to make the jackets a seamstress makes the pouches that will contain the down stuffing each pouch is filled with a precise and predetermined amount of down to make sure there's an even look to the jackets and enough insulation for this pouch that's 8 grams 18 of these bags go into every one of the down jackets a single large piece of fabric is marked out to make up the outside of the coat before being carefully cut it's a special porous material that lets the jacket breathe while still being waterproof with over a hundred different parts needed to make up the outside of the coat it takes 40 minutes just to cut them all out another seamstress stencils a design onto the fabric this will be stitched around to make the coat quilted they use a nylon thread to attach the pouches to the coat and then they soin cross seams along the design that was sketched out earlier these stop feathers from collecting in one part of the pouch and keep the jacket looking puffy all over all the pieces are ready and it's time for them to get sewn together it's here that the lining pockets and zips are attached to the jacket [Music] an hour and a half of careful summing later under jackets complete because of all the time involved in making one this factory only produces 200 a day but they still managed to get through 30 million feathers [Music]

Channel: Free Documentary

Views: 1,638,143

Keywords: How it works, Lego, How it works Lego, How its made, How it's made, Skyscrapers, How it works skyscrapers, Cool Stuff: How It Works (TV Program), Chocolate Cake, Jacket, How it works jacket

Id: up1tk5kyFQU

Length: 23min 35sec (1415 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 15 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/steinman17]

@3:22 when she spills all those pieces on the floor, it made me very uncomfortable.

[u/LordRaison]

Now i realize what the black bar on a minifigure's neck is for...