Scrapheap Challenge

To get the series off to a smashing start, the first episode challenges the teams to break one of Scrapheap's longest-standing records. Back in series six, The Catalysts set a top speed of 72mph in the Grand Prix Challenge. Now The Rocketeers, a team of pyrotechnicians from Bath, and The Brum Brums, motor mechanics from Birmingham, are challenged to beat that time, in the scrap speed record attempt. Where better to do it than historic Pendine Sands, the spiritual home of British land speed record attempts? The teams are under expert scrutiny as they attempt to race their way into the 'heap record books - this week's judge is two-time land speed record-holder Richard Noble.

This week's mechanical migraine promises to be a Scrapheap classic. The teams must build contraptions to throw a 100-kilogramme scooter as far as they can, without the help of compressed gas or gunpowder. The Balloonatics, a trio of hot air balloonists from Liverpool, take on The Aquarium Crew, a team of aquarium constructors from Dorset.

The teams build high speed motorbikes capable of racing each other head-to-head around the twisty Scrapheap circuit.

It's a decorator's dream as two teams compete to build a mobile painting machine capable of decorating a house from a distance

The teams must build super-swift vehicles capable of racing up and over the Scrapheap's very own desert dunes.

The teams compete to build wave-pounding power boats capable of skimming across the Scrapheap lake. And it's not as easy as it sounds.

Inspired by the sleds used to test supersonic planes and spacecraft, the teams are challenged to build a superfast railway... but all usual forms of propulsion are banned.

The teams are challenged to build fire engines in just 10 hours. They have to complete a tight course in the fastest possible time, extinguishing two burning mock jet engines.

The teams are challenged to build super snow shifting machines as well as having to race up a ten-degree slope in temperatures of minus four degrees.

This challenge tests the teams' underwater ingenuity as they build a salvage machine from a stockpile of scrap in order to retrieve lost treasure from the bottom of a mini ocean.

Two teams have reached the final and now they have just ten hours to build a tow tug capable of pulling a 155 ton jumbo jet along.

It's the grand final of Scrapheap Challenge and the Rusty Regiment go head-to-head with Woof Justice for 2008's Rings of Steel trophy

A blast from the past, taking inspiration from the very first episode, when two teams were challenged to race makeshift hovercraft around the Scrapheap course.

Sixteen teams of backyard bodgers from around the UK battle it out for the chance to take on the crème de la crème of the engineering world, the Scrapheap Allstars.

Teams from around the country have been challenged to build giant mechanical bows capable of launching four-foot arrows, making for an archery tournament of epic proportions.

Robert Llewellyn looks back over the highlights of a decade on the heap with the presenters, experts and contestants who've made the show such a success.