Open the champagne bottle

Task stats

Points

15

Disquals

0

• Vidar buries the bottom of the bottle in the ground, in the garden of the Kongen Befaler house, and lays a heavy wooden post on top to help hold it in place. He then duct tapes a knife to the end of a long pole, fashioned by taping two long garden tool handles together, so that he can sabre the bottle from a distance. After multiple clumsy swings at the neck of the bottle, he eventually breaks it off with his device from 3.3 metres away, securing himself fourth place.
• Karin panics while reading the task brief, as Olli has set an hourglass running on the desk, and she thinks she is going to run out of time. Karin takes the bottle out into the garden, where she tips a garden table up on its end, and duct tapes an axe to it, to create a sort of champagne bottle guillotine. She positions the bottle on a cushion on the ground, where the axe is going to fall, and then ties a long length of rope to the table, so she can pull it from a distance. She runs the rope over to the edge of the driveway, and activates her champagne guillotine, successfully breaking off the top of the bottle from 28 metres away. This earns her third place in the task.
• Lars' initial plan A is to place the bottle on the balcony railing, and throw something at it from a distance, to knock it off. His initial plan B is to tie a string around the top of the bottle, and pull it off. He then realises that plan B is the better of his two ideas, so he runs with that. He ties string to the bottle, then throws the reel off the balcony, down the garden. He hops onto a bicycle, and cycles as far away from the house as he can, letting the string unwind behind him. Dismounting from the bike, he then pulls on the string, and successfully pulls the bottle off of the balcony. The bottle lands on the ground, and the cork pops out, spraying champagne across the lawn. In the studio, Olli reveals that Lars managed to open the bottle from 147.5 metres away, which means that he wins the task.
• Leo says his idea is inspired by Trude Drevland, a former Mayor of Bergen, whom he had presumably seen launch a ship by breaking a bottle of champagne against its hull. He ties a length of rope to the bottle, which he hangs through the hoop of a basketball net attached to the garage. He then runs the rope down the driveway, and attempts to drop the bottle to the ground by releasing a lot of slack into the line. However, the plan fails because the bottle gets stuck in the net. He frees it up, and attempts the method again, but this time the bottle is just gently lowered by a metre or two, towards the ground, without making any impact. Trying another approach, he places the bottle on a workbench in front of the garage, and tugs on the rope (which passes through the basketball hoop) from the driveway. Its unclear what his intention was, with this method, but it succeeds only in dropping the bottle on the gravel driveway, still sealed and fully intact. He then switches tack again, placing the bottle in the guttering of the garage, and pulling it out from a distance with his rope. However, this method also fails, as the bottle hits the ground and again remains sealed and intact. With just 80 seconds left on the clock, he switches technique again, and pulls the bottle off of the balcony of the house from the driveway, smashing the bottle open on the stone steps below. In the studio, Olli reveals that Leo managed to open the bottle from 33.8 metres away, which earns hims second place.
• Before reading the task brief, Hani notes that she has never opened a bottle of champagne before. This lack of experience proves to be her undoing. Her plan is to tie a string around the neck of the bottle, and use that to pull the cork off. However, she decides that she first needs to loosen the cork a little, to make sure it will come out. While she is doing this, the cork pops right out and flies across the driveway, giving her a total distance of zero metres, and earning her last place.