OU on the BBC: Rough Science 4: Death Valley - Welcome

Production team

Rough Science is back!

After the phenomenal success of Rough Science 3, where we hunted for gold on New Zealand’s rugged west coast, we weren’t ready to rest on our laurels - so now we’re back with even tougher and more exciting challenges.

So, what’s in store for series four? Once again we’ve given the entire series a theme, more demanding than the hunt for gold: this time, we're planning for a mission into space! But if the producers thought they were going to stump the scientists, they were wrong; the tougher you make the challenges, the more ingenious our scientists become.

But where to film such a demanding challenge? Where else but one of the most demanding places on Earth, Death Valley. We based ourselves just outside the Death Valley National Park in an old abandoned mine building. Having heard that Death Valley is often 50°C in the summer I was getting worried, but the producer reassured us that as the mine is 1500 metres above sea level, it rarely gets hotter than 40°C, so it shouldn’t be too bad.

So, we had a location, what about the Rough Scientists? The essential Rough Science mix remains the same; a group of five scientists making magic with everyday items, in order to solve a series of scientific puzzles - and all in just three days. But this year a new scientist joined the team - for the first time the scientists had a geologist in their midst.

Over the course of this six part series, you'll be able to follow the team's progress as they overcome challenges that real space scientists have to solve - only without the luxury of millions of dollars funding, working against the clock and having to rely on whatever they can lay their hands on. And you can read their own take on the tasks I set them by reading the scientists' personal diaries.

Making the series was hard work, but great fun too. I really hope you enjoy watching the series as much as we enjoyed making it.

Rough Science 4: Death Valley in more depth: