Putting the 'wile' in coyote

Sue Vorenberg | The New Mexican

2/28/2008 - 2/29/08

Wile E. Coyote has had more than his share of bumps, scrapes and splats at the feet of the New Mexico state bird, but that doesn't mean another state institution can't help him.

New Mexico Tech has offered to help the famous coyote get back at his nemesis, the roadrunner, in a science TV series tentatively titled Man vs. Cartoon, being filmed by Pilgrim Films & Television, a California company.

"The idea is that the coyote is sick and tired of Acme products failing, so he's going to seek out some help," said Van Romero, vice president for research and economic development at Tech. "He'll come to New Mexico Tech, talk to our engineers and will ask them 'I can't get this stuff to work, what's wrong?' "

Students and professors at the Socorro university will then do the math and run experiments to see how to make things really work — like the well-known stunt where the coyote tries to drop a boulder on the roadrunner, and fails miserably.

"We have a 200-foot cliff at the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center, where we blow stuff up," Romero said. "The students will have to calculate if the roadrunner is going at a certain speed, and the coyote is going to drop the rock, what time exactly does he have to drop it."

And that's actually a lot harder than it seems, Romero said.

"It's not a trivial calculation — drag plays a major role," he said, noting that wind drag is especially hard to calculate for uneven objects like the rocks or boulders that Wile E. Coyote likes to drop.

So that no actual roadrunners are harmed during production, Tech is going to build a mechanical roadrunner to take the bird's place.

"Word has come down from the Legislature, which isn't too fond of the idea of us harming the state bird, that we can't actually kill him," Romero said. "So we'll smash him, but he'll have to be able to spring back and walk around afterward."

That's not an easy trick either, considering the students intend to drop a 500-pound sphere, then a boulder off the cliff and onto the unsuspecting robot.

The state Senate passed a memorial, SM40, sponsored by Joseph J. Carraro, in the most recent session designating New Mexico Tech as the "Home of the Mechanical Roadrunner," though, so it wouldn't be wise for Tech to smash what could be the school's first real mascot, Romero said.

"You have the Lobos, the Aggies and now the Mechanical Roadrunners," Romero said with a laugh.

The Senate memorial also takes the liberty of adding details to some of the character's titles — just like the cartoon series has always done.

Those titles are:

• Wile E. Coyote (road-runner digestus)
• Roadrunner (hot rodicus supersonica)
• New Mexico Tech (smartius pantsius universitatus)
• Tech President Dan Lopez (largus bossaloticus)
  

The memorial also calls Wile E. Coyote's attacks on the roadrunner "an intolerable assault on a bird that is held dearly in the hearts and minds of the people of this state."

And it says that "this mechanical roadrunner must meet or exceed the demanding standards of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, while using only green or red chile as a power source."

Still, Tech's students and faculty will do their best to give the coyote a fighting chance, Romero said.

Other gags in the six-part series will include putting the coyote on a rocket sled as a means to catch the roadrunner, and dropping something on the roadrunner from a hot air balloon, he said.

"A lot of these stunts, we'll get physics classes or chemical engineering classes or other classes to determine why the coyote's efforts haven't worked," Romero said.

The shows should air this fall on True TV, said Craig Piligian, executive producer for the series at Pilgrim.

His group is partnering with Warner Brothers for the show, he said.

The estimated cost per episode is about $50,000, which the production company will pay for, Romero added.

"We're treating this just like any other research project," Romero said. "The funding goes into the different research entities, which will pay staff, student and research salaries."

Tech chose to work with Pilgrim because the company also produces Dirty Jobs, on the Discovery Channel and Ghost Hunters on the Sci-fi Channel, Romero said.

And there's even more to come.

After the Man vs. Cartoon series, Pilgrim and Tech are planning a 14-part series looking at engineers and scientists for a show in the vein of Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel, Romero said.

"It will be sort of a day-in-the-life show, with aspects of engineering, seismology, lightning and other research," Romero said. "New Mexico Tech is obviously known for the explosives work we do, but there's a lot of other cutting-edge research."

The tentative name of that show has a catchy ring to it, too. It will likely be called Blow Up U, and it should air sometime in spring 2009, Piligian said.

"It's really going to be a docu-soap series on what they do at the university," Piligian said. "They do unbelievable things every day. It's not unlike American Chopper, where they build bikes, that's what it's going to be."

Contact Sue Vorenberg at 986-3072 or svorenberg@sfnewmexican.com.