Doing DaVinci, Flash Hopkins Debuts On The Discovery Channel

photo by Tony Campanale

“Doing Da Vinci” is a new show airing Monday nights at 10pm on the Discovery Channel. Our good friend Flash Hopkins, who has been involved in the San Francisco art community for years and Burning Man from the beginning, is part of the team on the show, a group of experts who’s goal is to build some Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions that have never before been constructed. Here are some video clips from the show.

Leonardo da Vinci was the original Renaissance Man — master of science, master of the arts, master of war. His revolutionary designs were the most advanced weapons of their day and were capable of unparalleled destruction. Yet no proof exists that they were ever constructed.
In Doing DaVinci a team of expert builders will try to construct these unique inventions using only materials available in da Vinci’s own time. It’s a modern twist on the classics, but will these outrageous machines work? Or were Leonardo’s genius ideas better left in the history books?

The series premieres tonight, April 13th on at 10pm ET/PT with an episode on building DaVinci’s “Armored Tank”. In San Francisco you can catch the show in HD on channel 750 at 7:00pm or the regular broadcast on channel 15 at 10:00pm.

On a sad note, Saturday I received an email from Tom Kennedy, the day before he unexpectedly passed away. He was helping to promote Flash’s new show. Tom has collaborated with Flash on numerous projects over the years including “The Whale” at Burning Man and the “Topsy-Turvy Bus”. Here’s the email Tom sent out to his friends:

The intention of this email is to let you
know that Flash has a Discovery Channel
TV show premiering Monday evening,
called Doing Da Vinci. I believe that
it is scheduled to air at both 7 & 10 PM.

Flash does not have a publicity
department back here, but I thought
it was important to let his friends know that
his show is about to air. If I was to help
him spread the word, I would send out
a few emails. Tell your friends of course.

And for you tech savy Flash fans, go to
Discovery.com and search for the show called
Doing Da Vinci and you can view over ten clips
that show the team of builders, including Flash,
build some amazing machines out of the
sketchbooks of Leonardo DaVinci. Building
mostly war machines, the crew sometimes
encounter disagreements on how to get
the job done…and Flash will be Flash….

…Your mission, if you decide to accept it, is
to watch (or record) TV on Monday night.
This tape will self-destruct in 5 seconds….

Over and Out,
Major Tom

Doing DaVinci
Discovery Channel
Monday, April 13th
7 & 10 PM