Adam Savage Gleefully Marvels at Theo Jansen’s Strandbeest During Its Visit to San Francisco

In a new video for Tested, a very excited Adam Savage made his way over to Crissy Field in San Francisco to meet up with Dutch artist Theo Jansen and his incredible Strandbeest as they made their way down the beach. With each step, Savage gleefuly marveled at the incredible engineering that was involved in creating this magnificent “animal”.

This is the first time ever being shown in San Francisco. This is also the first time I have ever witnessed one in person. I can barely stand it. So understand these are all built completely out of PVC pipe. Every bearing, every attachment. It’s incredible. It is six pairs of legs, 12 separate feet, but each leg – each of the twelve legs is an arrangement of spars the tail worked out – that move in a very what do you say animal-like way. He thinks of these things as an evolution. He is making biological organisms and they are powered by the wind. They have wind stomachs. What looks like crude engineering is in fact hiding a really sophisticated and beautiful…I don’t even want to call it a machine, it’s an animal. …I’m gonna build one of these.