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00:00G'day, I'm Dr Karl.
00:05Now over my long and varied career,
00:07I seem to have picked up quite a bit of knowledge.
00:11I certainly get asked a lot of questions.
00:14But don't let that fool you.
00:16I do not have all the answers.
00:18There are plenty of things that I have yet to investigate.
00:23These torrents, these rivers, these plugs of conveyor belts and chips.
00:27Like how everyday items are made.
00:30Ah, I missed. I'm going too far.
00:34And that's the idea of this series.
00:36What an absolutely amazing arm. Aren't they incredible?
00:42Ah, it did it. Oh, look, there it is.
00:44A perfect oval.
00:46I want to find out how things work.
00:50Now this time, when it comes to sport,
00:53our national obsession is the game that we call our own
00:56Australian rules football.
00:59This is where they make them.
01:00That's correct.
01:01And a shape stitched into the heart of footy tragics
01:05is the iconic red or yellow ball.
01:09Faster you can.
01:10Oh, I've gone too close to the edge, Dean.
01:12Now, knowledge always begins with a question.
01:15And this time, the question is,
01:17how do they make Aussie rules footballs?
01:20Hands up.
01:21Have their head, is it?
01:22Come down.
01:23Chime.
01:24Ah!
01:29Handball onto O'Neill.
01:32Detroit going forward.
01:33Behind the bruising ballet of Aussie rules footy.
01:37A thundering spiral torpedo.
01:40What football!
01:42What a goal!
01:45Is the art of making a match-grade ball.
01:49A tradition almost as old as the game itself.
01:53Now, if you know your Aussie rules,
02:03you'll know that the action that I just did was called a mark,
02:06and this thing in my hand is called a footy,
02:09and it is the centrepiece of what is almost certainly
02:12the oldest continuously played football code in the whole world.
02:17Older than the rugby's,
02:18and older than soccer in its current form,
02:21but not as old as Maan Grook,
02:24a sport played by Australian Indigenous people,
02:27which almost certainly was part of the inspiration for,
02:29you guessed it, Aussie rules.
02:31OK, I do know a few random football facts,
02:34but how you actually make a footy,
02:37man, I've got no idea.
02:39To find out more, I've come to the Sherin Factory,
02:43here in Melbourne's southeastern suburbs.
02:49Josh, this is amazing.
02:50You've got five levels.
02:52Yep.
02:53And four of the five levels are full of what look like potato sacks.
02:56Yes.
02:57But they're not full of potatoes.
02:58They've got all footballs in there.
03:00But there's so many of them.
03:01Yes, I know.
03:02Tens, hundreds?
03:03There's actually thousands of footballs in here.
03:0550,000 to be exact,
03:08and behind these doors is the heart of the operation.
03:17This is where they make them?
03:18That's correct.
03:19That's where we make them.
03:20Are you kidding?
03:21Man, I can't believe how compact it is.
03:23Yes.
03:24Unassuming as it looks, it is the small but mighty engine room of the whole operation.
03:37automated machinery no fancy robotics just skilled humans like leading hand
03:44Josh who's been on the job 24 years and his love of the game started in the
03:53under 10s playing for Bayside so dr. Josh how many balls a day do you make in
03:58here we normally make 200 balls a day 200 so that's 25 an hour there's fewer
04:04than a couple of dozen workers here I'm thinking small but mighty how do you do
04:09it we actually have 16 people working 16 and it's all hand stitch and also a
04:15heritage machinery oh so this is all ancient machinery doing the same way
04:20you've done it for decades probably half a century for half a century yeah and my
04:25passion particularly on grand final week is when we make the balls when you
04:29actually see the actual balls oh wow yeah you're a part of it
04:34but of course the most important question to ask when it comes to footy
04:39so whom do you support I'm Essendon ah yeah the bombers yeah and when do they
04:46last have a grand final they last win the grand final 2001 we have not won a
04:51premiership since 2000 who do you follow well I've got no choice I have to follow
04:55what my daughters follow which is the swans of course and in fact my daughter
04:58Alice she can recognize the individual swans players by their arm muscles can you
05:05recognize your team by their arm muscles
05:09anyhow the process starts not with muscle but with skin you see historically the ball
05:16was called a pig skin a nod to using inflated pig bladders for a ball not so these days these are
05:27cow leather yeah the first stage of cutting those safety gloves yeah safety gloves which we just got
05:33start and stop button on the heat underneath here oh I can hear winding up and we just check our
05:38height and our pressure and that's hydraulically driven that's correct and I'll move this across that's
05:44right yep and then I want to cover the blade and then I press down here that's correct at the same
05:51time same time ah I did it yes did it do it properly I think it did yeah let's have a look so I take it off
05:59yeah oh look there it is yes it's actually inside the cutting blade that's right oh yeah a perfect oval
06:06yeah so why is the Aussie rules football not round but oval or if you want to be mathematically correct
06:13prolate spheroid well this shape is part of its secret weapon why can fly so well when it's spinning
06:20around its long axis you get a bit of gyroscopic action and if the kicker is clever enough to line
06:27up the gyroscopic action along the long axis with its direction of travel it tends to stay in that
06:32orientation so reducing the drag and that's why I can have a wonderful kick like the torpedo punt
06:39remember first we have to make a 3d shape from two-dimensional material so we'll need four panels
06:51to make one ball so how come you're working with yellow yeah whereas your colleague over here is working
06:57with red well we actually use the red balls for the actual grand final and with the yellow ball after
07:033 p.m. we normally use them for the twilight and night games so the yellow yes stands out better at
07:09night that's correct yes oh I never thought about that yeah so we ever have a game where you change
07:16halfway through from red to yellow no no they'd be sacrilegious no exactly yeah and when it comes to
07:28the waste litter they've found some creative uses so what happens to these scraps that are in the bin
07:35here we actually use our recycling of leather for furniture floor matting and concrete oh my god
07:41wow I can see look at that there's a flexible bit of leather there so I'm guessing that there's some
07:46sort of structural integrity thing that they're doing that they know about that I don't know about
07:50yes they tell me adding these off cuts to concrete reduces landfill and works like a micro reinforcement
07:58to stop it from cracking man they're doing something good here aren't they you learn something new every
08:04day exactly yes now leather is a pretty wonderful material when it comes to footballs because got
08:14that rare and highly desired combination of being both tough and flexible and the reason is you've got
08:20a whole bunch of long skinny molecules of collagen of different thicknesses and in different layers
08:25they're all meshed and interlinked with each other making it a lot tougher but if you give it a bit of a
08:32beating say compression from the toe cap of a football boot it will destroy that integrity it'll break up the
08:39fibers and then over thousands of kicks it'll actually distort and on the surface you begin to see the
08:45layer scuff and even fray letters pretty good but it's not invincible footies take a pounding so how do you
08:58get the leather to harden up well it's all about the part of the ball we don't see it relies on the application of a cotton backing to every panel and to explain I'm passed to the safe hands of Dean and Carl
09:17so this is not pure cotton Dean it's no this is a polyester why that why is that you want different
09:24properties in it so the cotton gives its flexibility and durability and I'm guessing breathability as well
09:31breathability as well so that's cotton and the other part is the polyester gives it its
09:36waterproofing and strength using a latex glue to join the panels adds another layer of toughness to
09:43the bound materials it helps spread the load when the ball is getting kicked so you got a small force
09:51like here but then it gets spread over a larger area because it's glued on correct yes
09:57but why is cotton the first pick to support well in Australia we grow it by the footy field what do
10:16you think about this cotton heads that ready to go yeah I think we can start I think it looks good
10:20yeah I'll let Ab know you can pull the pickers out yep cotton is in the blood of the Morowitz family
10:36they're the dedicated owners and operators of this farm in Emerald in Queensland around the world this
10:46fluffy stuff is known as white gold this is what it's all about this is cotton is a hibiscus plant
10:56related to all the ornamental hibiscus is that people have in their house gardens or parks the
11:02cotton bowl is actually the fruit of the plant so you can see as I'm pulling it apart the fibers are
11:08superfine and they're elongated and it's that characteristic that enables those fibers to be
11:14spun and turned into to yarn and so it's able to be used it's these strong and durable fibers that
11:21make it perfect for reinforcing the leather of our footballs it's just a really versatile product you
11:29can make you know things as tough as jeans and then you can make super delicate dress shirts and
11:34you know sheets and undergarments and then that's only the fiber you can get lots of the things from
11:40the seed as well you can use it for cattle feed but then also there's different cotton seed oils
11:45basically you use so much of the whole plant for thousands of years this delicate crop was harvested
11:55by hand to preserve its fragile fibers a practice that is tragically entwined with a dark history of
12:02slavery but now these aggressive looking monster machines do the picking of these delicate cotton
12:09tufts there's three thousand three hundred and sixty spindles that run on the machine and the way that
12:17they work is that they poke in and out at a super fast pace as they're also traveling around at the same
12:22time they might look like spinning daggers but actually they're surprisingly gentle the spindles will
12:29basically poke a grit you know into the plant now pull the cotton fiber off the soft balls are then
12:38sucked up and compacted to make one full round and you can see in the camera I am dropping one off the
12:45back which is roughly two and a half time for the harvesting machinery can can pick the cotton the
12:53cotton has to be dry the moisture has to be less than 12 percent if cotton is packed away too wet in excess
13:01of 12 percent it will heat and spontaneously combust because the bacteria within the fiber becomes active
13:08it can create enough heat and modules can catch fire
13:11we export a whopping ninety nine percent of what we produce
13:22now while there are loads of benefits to using cotton it is a water guzzling crop drawing many critics
13:32new innovations in irrigation technology have gone some way to addressing the problem
13:39today there's a lot of technology and in how we irrigate most growers use use probes in the
13:47fields it's you know it essentially puts a puts a fuel gauge on your water source it means that you
13:52monitor daily how much water the the cotton is using and we're much more efficient than than
13:58we used to be this module of cotton was grown with about half the water that it would have used
14:0340 years ago to grow the same weight of cotton these farms are all shaped by years of hard work and a
14:16passion for the land I love it I mean you couldn't do it if you didn't love it because it does say
14:23it's a you know they're long days and long hours there is something about quite picking at sunset that
14:29just it makes you full of them up it's beautiful
14:49back in the factory sponsors paid big bucks to get their logos on the footy luckily with a few years of
14:57peace love and experience under the belt I know how it gets done welcome to silt screen printing 101
15:08for a few months in my career I did night shift screen silk printing t-shirts this is a silt screen
15:15and when you run your fingers across it it feels as smooth and as impermeable as glass but no it's got
15:21holes in it within each square centimeter roughly the size my little finger now there are 90 holes and if
15:27I were to put some paint on it or die and then squeeze it the paint or die would go through the
15:33holes onto whatever is on the other side but since those heady hippie days of dragging a squeegee over
15:40a screen and getting splattered link there has been some progress and now with the wonders of lasers a
15:48stencil of the logo is burned onto the screen
15:54so this is our screen printing machine semi-automatic which prints one color at a time it's set up at the
16:02moment for a job so would you like to print one sure tell me what to do so what you need to do is get
16:09the panel yep and put it into the lace stops okay so put it in here so flush up against it yep as the
16:17first layer of the logo has already been printed it's a fine art to get the placement exactly right
16:23for the lettering otherwise it goes into the recycling bin okay and then and then what you do you stand
16:30back a little bit but you have to hit the pedal so here we go putting your foot in there yep now hit
16:35the pedal yep then the squeegee will print it is a technology that goes way back to China's Song
16:43dynasty in the 10th century and oh look what it says how things work it's like magic but science instead
16:53wow so cool man
17:00once the inks dry Alex handballs back to the assembly team so the four panels can be paired ready to morph
17:13into something that looks like a football but first a little more prep with something every
17:19sewing machine needs the bobbin of course and if you think that winding the waxy waterproof thread is
17:30easy ah think again here we go oh I made a bit of a bump there oh I don't want to make it bad to a
17:38sewing machine oh oh I stayed stuck in one spot the bobbin then goes into this industrial sized beast
17:48to start stitching the four panels together to make a ball if Dean's a pro I'm definitely the
17:58apprentice whoa faster you can oh I'm scared oh I've gone too close to the edge Dean so I'm pushing the
18:11leather against the guide so I'm inset the right distance all away it is difficult you made it look
18:18simple oh look at that mate I went too close to the edge the stitches are all out of place oh there's
18:27no point in trying to stitch over that again no no and I was really slow as well not only was I not
18:32as good I was a lot caught no fingers caught now by the way I do admire the fact I'm working with a
18:37professional because I noticed that everybody here doesn't call it a foot pedal but you call it a
18:42pedal because it comes from the Latin pez pedis so it's like calling a handle a hand handle it's
18:50not a hand handle it's just a handle and the thing that you use with your foot it's not a foot pedal
18:54it's just a pedal and suddenly I'm with people who call it a pedal not a foot pedal and I'm really
18:59impressed by your professionalism thank you so much thank you was a lot of well-thought-out pattern
19:05making and a touch of brute force to smooth out the seams a ball begins to take shape and we're
19:15going to put it on the steel pole in front of you oh this steel pole here okay turning it inside out
19:21yes okay right the ball inside out and just push down nice and firm on the steel pole right we're
19:31going to rub the seams down oh you're rubbing them down okay sorry first in stitch I'm seeing a ball
19:45come into existence here but how they close the ball when it's already been mostly turned out I can
19:59show you but I can't show everyone else right and I promise not to show and tell anybody else what I'm
20:05seeing okay got it it's become a 140 year old secret as old as the company itself in fact only two
20:14people in the whole factory know how it's done and now throw me as well he just walk it down walk it
20:25down yeah really there you go that's done wow and not by the merest flicker of an expression upon my
20:37face shall I reveal whether I have or have not seen the secret method or if in fact there is or is not
20:42a secret method in fact on this one I'm in a quantum state of existence both knowing and not knowing back
20:49to you dr. Dean thank you thank you what we're going to do now is we're going to get this turned
20:52out by Carl now this looks fairly physical the final shaping takes some serious muscle they call
21:03a second top turnout which is a final stage before the bladder goes in so no wonder they have a physio
21:12visit them once a week oh my god it flipped and while the craft of ball making reflects a long tradition
21:20there's an upgrade afoot it might look like any other footy but this ball is built not just to be
21:39kicked sportable has turned it into a high-tech tool and today the St Kilda Saints are taking it
21:48through spaces so this here is a smart ball just like a regular footy only inside we've actually
21:56got a little chip with heaps of sensors inside that give us all kinds of different information
22:00there's an accelerometer that tells us how fast the ball is moving and changes in its speed there's a
22:06magnetometer that tells us about the ball's direction and there are also gyroscopes in there
22:11gyroscope tells us about the ball's spin as it's moving all together that means that we've got a
22:16really solid 3d picture of how the ball is moving all over the oval while tracking players and video
22:22assisted referees have been part of the game for a while this is the first time technology has been
22:28used to record what the ball is doing and in real time so here's how it works so right up here we've
22:34got one of our 16 anchors these are spread evenly all around the ground they pick up the data from
22:39the ball and feed it back to the system we've got set up over here bringing the balls online is so easy
22:46where that sensor sits that's it and the ball's live and ready to go once the data is collected it's
22:55booted to Andy to make sense of it once it comes off the chip we use a bunch of algorithms to understand to
23:02to mesh all that different data into some useful insights and we visualize the whole thing we'll
23:08have a look at this with spin efficiency yeah terrible kick off to the side of the boot there
23:15which is why we didn't even get a nice distance we use a game engine so it's actually really high
23:21fidelity graphics it's quite amazing but with all of that together we can can see what the ball's doing
23:28how it's moving how it's bending
23:36but will it mean the tradition of umpires goes by the wayside we're totally not here to replace the
23:44umpires we're all about giving them some more objective data to work with so within a quarter
23:50of a second of the ball crossing the the goal line we get a an outline like this it tells us which posts did
23:57it cross between was it touched or not touched um we just give them a bunch of information that
24:02helps them to make their overall decision process easier i think there's going to be a balance and
24:07this system with its immediacy it doesn't slow down the game in fact it's quicker because
24:12the officials now aren't looking at multiple replays to try and work things out they have all
24:16the data they need to make a decision straight away for coaches like the saints damian carroll the
24:25detailed data from those clever balls has the potential to make the difference between winning
24:31and losing
24:36you can see there's been 1096 kicks across the entire session we can have a look and we can see the
24:41distance and the hang time of of each kick of each player and you can see down here just the
24:45difference in rotations there that'd be really interesting to track what would be the desirable
24:50spin distance as well and then we can get the feedback to the players on where their level is and
24:56if they do hit that spin level how accurate they're likely to be so that'd be interesting even the fans
25:01get a little something extra from this new tech one of the biggest things that'll do is open up the
25:07the understanding of the game to to new viewers they'll understand the skills behind what these
25:11players are doing they can see the path of the ball they can see what that player is aiming at and
25:17how they're working so it will enlighten an audience as to who hasn't played football as to what it's
25:23like to be a player and what these people are doing on the other side making the game as fair as possible
25:29from the officiation just helps with the integrity of the game and and keeps the fans also
25:35um uh happy that everything is being done to to keep this as accurate and as um as correct as
25:42possible installing these smart ships properly depends on getting the next step right well what are the
25:58bledders made out of yes they're vulcanized latex very durable last very very long time
26:10this football bladder is made of treated latex natural latex the raw sap of the rubber tree is fairly
26:19sticky and pretty useless in the 1800s charles goodyear had been trying for a really long time to make this latex more useful
26:27and at one stage he mixed it with sulfur and then accidentally dropped onto a hot stove it did not
26:34char into a useless hard mess and it did not turn into a liquid it turned into something that was tough
26:40and most importantly elastic it bounced he had invented the process we call vulcanization named after the roman
26:49god of fire bulkhead you see the latex had been through the flames and had come out stronger
26:59there's only lacing and a bit of air between this and four quarters of footy
27:06and you want to find that little needle hole okay oh look at that i've given it a twist
27:12hang on oh naughty me and then for optimal bounce it's inflated to 69 kilopascals or about 10 psi in
27:21the old money
27:25and finally it's ready for its game day debut ah can i have a go with a bouncy thing yeah just bounce it
27:33yep hands up come down chime i did not expect to find so much packed into such a simple shape
27:48there's complex material science balances of pressures and stitched geometries that would make
27:55a mathematician sweat this is an object shaped by love and tradition as by people who know that the
28:04object that they make that this thing here will be kicked marked or even held high on grand final day
28:12so i guess at this stage there's only one thing left to do which is to break in this brand new ball
28:17and give it its first ever kick here we go
28:30it worked it wasn't very far or high but at least it went away
28:39next time it's been responsible for many a burnt tongue oh it's starting to brown and could arguably
28:46be called our national dish now drop you how do they make pies
28:58every episode of dr carl's how things work anytime on abc iview or up next
29:04delve into the history of evolution in the premiere of human
29:16you
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