 Welcome to Tech Showdown episode 2. If you're not familiar with the format, you can... 1, yes, 1. Also, you can click that corp... That's 1, this is 2. Basically, what we do is we take a theme and we build a computer around that theme with a very limited budget and very limited time. And today's theme is... A future. A future or the future? Future. So let's see what's in our future. Or not. Right now. Yeah. I think mine is similar. Okay, let's go. So the idea behind Tech Showdown is that neither of the participants, other than the secret ingredient, which is the theme of the future, knows what the other is doing. But I think, based on very cryptic conversations with Luke, that we've both taken a worst-case scenario interpretation of the future and run with that today. And while I think on some... Whoops. I'm okay. Dang it. While I think it's impossible for us to actually have come up with the same idea, he thinks the same thing. So do two impossibilities make a possibility? No? Unless they do, man. Like, I don't know. The viewers are going to be in on it the whole time if we're building the same computer. I don't think it's impossible, though. Oh, you have got to be kidding me. I don't have my orange screwdriver. Kill me now. Jake! Maybe he borrowed it. Sometimes he borrows it. He's not allowed to, but he does it anyway. Yes! Success. Okay. So he's building his computer already. I'm actually... I'm quite a ways away from that. I have some work to do on the case before I can start on that. Now, last tech showdown, I was heavily reliant on something I had never done before being executed with a reasonable degree of skill. It was almost an entirely glitter-themed PC. For today, I'm going back to skills that may not be fresh in my mind, but at least I have. Scissors, construction paper, and glue sticks. The label maker is key, my friend. Open. Josh. Why is the case derping? Josh, I blame you for any problems that happened today. This. This. This is our color palette for the day. Welcome. I'm going to spell out my theme, but not actually in order. There you go. That is my bleak future. I'm going to reveal to the camera just because it seems... surprisingly likely that he's gone with a similar theme. I really hope he's not also doing this. Okay. Oh, man. I'm just kind of scattered right now. I'm going to... I got to get my thoughts together. My future is so depressing that it's hard to even execute anything. Like, it's not even really funny. The first thing we're going to need is a striped... a striped color scheme on the one side panel here because it's all about... it's all about the greatness, the greatness of the effect of this magnificent event. And I really hope that I bought enough construction paper. I'm really not sure. I went and I returned some of the white sheets at the last second, not realizing what colors I would need. So I need a straight edge. Luke, do you have the level? All right. Yep, that'll work. Now I just need a pencil. How do I even get in? Oh. Why is it such a piece of sh... God damn it. Why is it so sh... What a sh... way to waste time with a sh... can of primer that we had at work. I should have distrusted the paint I brought. Do racist jokes fit into your theme? I'm trying to open it. I don't have scissors. Excuse me, John. Oh my God. Oh, measuring tape. Luke, can I have a measuring tape? See, the advantage to being on that side is that you actually have easy access to most of the tools. The disadvantage is that you have to hand me the tools. Oh, wow. Hey, I'll show you how I can grab things. The better to grab you with, my dear. Do you mean like it's not allowed because we're both men? Oh, maybe we have the same future. Okay. Oh my goodness. I have burned like 20 minutes cutting out six stripes. This is not good. I didn't even measure how many I needed. I might have cut extra. Oh, what am I doing? I think I cut extra. Why does it take that? Um, what about them? Where? I don't know. Okay, I might have to start going a little faster, but if I'm planning to overlap them, I actually don't really need them to be that precise at all. So I've been wasting time either way. Okay, I'm speeding up. This is how it was with the glitter. I got faster just in time to not need to do it anymore. We're going to have what would look like a pretty traditional stars and stripes kind of arrangement here, but in the corner, I'm going to put the face of Trump. Oh, yeah. Oh, he's beautiful. He's beautiful. Wait. It's red and white, right? Okay, we're just we're going to have to approximate it. All right. Here we go. I'm going for gold. For my next trick, I'm going to add more glue. In retrospect, I think it may have been better to start at the bottom. I mean, does this stuff set like instantly or what? Holy crap. I'm going to start building them from the bottom up. I don't even remember what color I started with anymore. I don't know when this thing is ready. I'm going to take that as a no. How long does it take? Okay, I'm just going to wait for this to heat up and try to do something else. So careful of that, Brandon. It's going to be very hot. Is this even going to be enough? Oh, my God. I'm cutting my sand right now because I need that to be done first. I'm short. I don't have the corners. It might be okay because I bought this stuff. I'm going to be able to glue in that right there. Is this thing not plugged in? Oh, my God. That's the problem. Holy shit. This stupid extension cord isn't plugged in. Is this supposed to make your eyes burn? Super glue? All right, so this is pretty good, but we're going to do some more. I'm especially going to try to hit the sides up because I don't really know how they're doing at this point. Try to work some golden magic here. I'm going to hit up the white here again. Someone's going to leave a message being like, wow, he's doing that so wrong. I'm a professional. I've been doing it for five years. Hey, foam boards. Look at it fuse together. Whoa. How's that look? F***. Bob is going to kill me. Bob is going to be like, Luke, you're an idiot. And I'm going to be like, Bob, I'm sorry. Bob, I don't know what I'm doing. Rod's going to be like, this is why we lost. No. No. That was a mistake too, wasn't it? Now it's too f***ing liquidy. I'm just ruining everything. No. F***. What is all this s***? God damn it. I just lost. Okay. Now we have a design decision to make. When we tried to fix the white, it got all this crap in it. When I sprayed the top of the case, I guess that paint is very dusty and it leaves a lot of rock-like dust in the air. And you can see there's a bunch of that crap in the white and it doesn't look good. So I'm going to try to get a bunch of it off in the most delicate way I can, which is not very delicate. And then I'm going to try to start over, I guess. Try to like sand this panel or something. And I'm running out. Might work out. The super glue is a little bit crazier than I had hoped. Okay, so this is the wall. This is the wall that separates Mexico and the U.S. that apparently Mexico is going to pay for. Maybe blue painter's tape wasn't the greatest idea. That's still very visible, isn't it? Back to square one again. Not like we're not used to that. Perfect, done. Okay, let's go. There we go. Oh, that side panel though. Wait. Oh, no. It's upside down. Oh, no. Okay, think about this. Maybe if I could peel up the whole thing and I can put the whole thing back on the other way. Hold on a second. Let's think about this. Is it better upside down? Like if the idea is that I've kind of designed a new flag with the portrait of the grand leader here. Is upside down okay? Okay, you know what? We're going to call that intentional. Editors cut out the part where I realized it was upside down. For the other side, I don't want windows, right? Windows represent people being able to come into your country. So instead of a window, I'm going to have a wall. A red, white, and green wall. It's going to look a little something like this. Yeah, that's right. I'm going to need my hot glue. I actually grabbed my own hot glue gun just in case Luke was going to be reliant on the hot glue as well. Also, it was adorable. Look at this thing. No, unfortunately no, but definitely pink. When it comes to hot glue, it's about length, not girth. The scary thing about all the time I'm spending right now is that I haven't even begun on my diorama. I just need a little bit more height for my construction project. And this should take care of it. Somewhat match the other ones. See, there you go. Now that should actually work pretty well. Now, I also brought myself a couple little characters. So did I. I'm not even kidding. I hope we don't have the same ones. I sincerely doubt you have the same characters that I do. I'm pretty confident in my ability to be s***. We haven't got a styrofoam cutter. Do you want it? Not yet. Thank you, though. I wouldn't have offered you the same thing. Now, we also need a lawn. Okay. You know what? I actually don't know why I thought I needed this foam board. I am blessed. What I'm going for here is kind of... You know what? I think I will use the foam board. Just because it will allow me to lift the whole thing up after the fact. Which could help a little bit. Now, I'm a little worried about not having actually at all started on the computer. But I will get to that later. I hope. Wow, I'm already down to the hole in the glue stick. I have used a lot of this. And I am nowhere near done. Fortunately, I can switch to hot glue for most of the upcoming construction. I do have a fair bit of that. Okay. So here we go. My first diorama project since elementary school. I guess I should kind of map this out a little bit. I could use a piece of paper. So I need four in the front and six in the back. So ten. Ten pages. This is getting kind of brutal. Um... F***! Okay, so on this side I want sparkly gold. Then I'm going to put the mannequin head on a slight angle. Give it s*** in a little trunk hair. Put money all around it and diamonds. Um... And maybe label... Label maker some of his s*** quotes. So this side's going to be all glam and glitz. Those look sufficiently f***ed up. Please God don't kick it on our way out. And let's go. Okay, so I'm going to put the mannequin head on a slight angle. And then I'm going to put the money on the side. And then I'm going to put the money on the side. And then I'm going to put the money on the side. And then I'm going to put the money on the side. And then I'm going to put the money on the side. Okay, so we're on our way out. And let's go. And then, so this is going to go here. And then it's going to have this on it. For the top bit. supply. I was told that I can't wreck the power supply so I am going to not wreck the power supply. Get it? It's plating. Gold plating. Four eights. Four eights. Sixteen eights. This stuff, which is like a paint, which I should be able to squeeze out so I can like get some of this stuff done if I want to. So that's an option. I have this thing. So Brandon accidentally stepped on my side panel a few times and it's here. It was on this corner and then all over the... okay I don't think he stepped on that one. All over this one. Used up a whole bunch of paint. I don't have enough paint anymore to paint the back of the brackets and I don't have enough paint to fix that. So I don't really know what to do. I'm trying to figure out some way to fix it but no idea. Why isn't it sticking at all? What the f***? I know there's a giant f***ing line. This is great. I'm f***ed. That's f***ed. That's f***ed. That's f***ed. And I don't even have a hot glue gun. Come on. F*** off. So that is the outer walls of my house. Now your glue gun works perfectly. It's a Warcraft 2 reference. Whoa it's still melting the styrene under the paper. Oh crapsicles. Look at me I could do crafts. Meanwhile the wives and girlfriends of all the people watching this video are just like he has no idea what he's doing. Did he just use C42 hot glue on foam board? Ah it stuck in my hand. That's gonna be the white apples. A little trunk leg on top. Okay I don't remember what these are for. Oh this is awful. Everything about it is awful. Crap. I wish I had my wife to help me with this. Kind of up to there. What I'm gonna need in order to make it somewhat realistic looking. Some windows. Could work the second time. Okay there's my windows. Yeah baby. I am going to glue this down. So I'm committing at this point. There's no time to redo everything that I've done on it anyway. So I'm going for the gusto here. Oh I never checked the centering on the oh boy. Well I hope that's somewhat close actually to the eye. That seems okay. I think we're all right. Okay so this baby is gonna go in here and this is gonna go right here. Then I got to figure out my pillars. Oh that'll do it. All right rock on Linus you marvelous stud. I'm sure the entire internet is gonna be criticizing my rolling technique too. It's going to wow the judges. Oh I love it. I got to tell you Luke you're up against some unexpectedly legit diorama skills here. I have spent the majority of my time on my diorama so far which is not because that's what I wanted to do but that's because that is what happened. I hope so. Linus always finishes because I need the joke to be visible but I also don't want it to look completely like comical and huge. I had originally intended to just have a face there but just because of the dimensions I think this works a little bit better. I'm still pushing towards the finish line. I still got to build a computer so. I don't really know what to do here. But with how much time I'm assuming we have left I will not be able to. Okay well that's good. I needed it. I'm gonna get wrecked too hard. See what Linus didn't know is that you could put your budget literally into your computer. So my solution here is to plate my graphics card with money. If the judges see money they might want to take it. In order to take it they obviously have to you know vote for me because that's how voting works isn't it? This is so not really okay. This whole build is so not okay. Okay so we're both super over time. I kind of have a feeling that Linus is kind of done and is just kind of doing stuff so that the contest is able to continue because I'm literally not done yet. Okay apparently he's still doing things. I still think I'm gonna get completely wrecked at the end but I'm just trying to like have something. That's that's yeah that is my goal at the moment. Have something. Present anything. Exist for some form of reason. That is my current goal. Explain to at least some level why the F I even entered this contest. Yeah all right that helps a lot. It's these little finishing touches that I've got to start getting to right now. So okay so first of all this is a functionality upgrade because I didn't realize until I was building the PC itself that my water cooler on the top the performance would be impacted by my diorama. So I added an airflow shroud so that it'll be able to exhaust all of its hot wind out the back and then the last thing that I did was I created a sales brochure so that the judges will know exactly what it is they're looking at and be able to judge it as favorably as possible. Okay let's go. Konga, konga, konga. This is really dangerous. Yeah I don't. I can't see your damn thing. I don't know where I'm going. This is really scary. Okay you're about to walk over a yellow cable John. I see that. It's fine. What? What? That's my theme. We did do the same thing. What the sh**? Mine's true wall. How did we do the same thing? Is that the White House? Yeah. Okay, mine's the wall. On the other side there's people trying to climb over it. Is this, oh they're both, they're Donald Trump. Both of them. Look at this. It looks like Vegas. Look at this. Whoa, whoa. They are blonde haired. I don't think they're Mexican. Okay are they trying to get into Mexico then? Can we even show this on the channel? I feel like I ask that every week. I feel like they're supposed to be ethnically indeterminate. I don't think it's really supposed to matter what ethnicity they are. What have you done? It just matters that they're not white. Okay so let's have a look here. You're not at Brooklyn. Is this okay? Oh it's the border wall that he made the Mexican government pay for. Apparently this PC was proudly made in Romania. Does it say Trump PC in Romania? Wow I don't even like. Okay so let's see here. One of these smells like cancer. I like how we replaced the point. One two three four five six seven eight. What are the nine stripes emblematic on? Where are the stars? Where is the blue on the flag? Is Trump looking shifty? Oh so we have an American flag. But it's upside down. It's upside down which is a signal of distress. Is the builder of this trying to make some kind of political statement here? Or is this just for... I don't know. So we have a gold plate of power supply. A bunch of Canadian, I mean Monopoly money sorry. We have diamond, plastic diamonds I guess. And a glass of, that might just be flat Pepsi. But I'm going to just pretend that that is wine. So literally gold plated. You know what actually? I like how the motherboard goes with the rest of the Build A Star as a color scheme. Because it's sort of like a dark orange. We both have the same motherboard John. I haven't changed anything. I used black cable mod cables. I used white ones. Because you used the white ones. Now there's glitter on here. You can see that it's kind of coming off. Like everywhere. So which one... It looks like there's a lot of painting done on this. So which one has the more impressive wall? This one apparently they forced the Mexicans to pay for it. But this one has actual people. This has emotion in it. Your wall apparently has more emotion. Oh shit. It gets sad sometimes, okay? He just called mine an elementary school project. That is exactly what I did. Is this just taped on? Looks that way. And it looks like it was attempted to be hot glued. But that probably didn't work very well. Unless this is temporary. To secure it while it's drying. Like are we supposed to take that off? If we took that off? No, no, no, no. Don't take it off. This whole panel makes me feel safe. Really? The gun, handcuffs. The gun is pointed directly at the temple of Trump's head. Is that symbolism? Is he being controlled by someone else? Hmm. Interesting. This build just got meta. I don't even know what to say to that. I have nothing to say for once. So do we actually judge this based on quality? That's a very square White House. It appears to be missing the entire West Wing. Where the President's office actually is. Of course John knows some useless crap like that. If you Google White House, that's what comes up. I do like how this one made an obvious reference to We made Mexico pay for it with the wall here. It's in the colors of the Mexican tri-color. It's very accurate. I like her dress. Oh, I do like how it says Trump Presidential Hotel. Does it say that? It means Trump Presidential Hotel. I like how it says Trump Presidential Hotel. If you had read the emoji, it says... Thank you! I told you you'd get it. John's like, whoa, no, it says... This seems to be to about the standard of Trump's normal build quality. Trump's what quality? Normal build quality of his hotels and various other establishments. Wow. It says scale replica, and it's not. And I just don't want to be lied to here. But that's Trump! It also says a bunch of other crap about the computer. By what metric is this 30% more Trump compared to a regular tower? There's like the international unit of... Trump. Trump. It just is. This is Trumped up judging is what we got going on here. John is defending a metaphysical point. Have we ever had this happen before? I don't know. I think they're being really harsh on my build here. See, he says what Trump brings to America. Do they even know the theme is the future? Can you go tell them the theme is not Trump? The theme is the future. Nobody said that! I mean, I walked over here and I saw both Trump builds and I was like, this is certainly a potential look at the future if you look at it as this side being America and this side being Mexico. Or Canada, because Trump will probably build a wall up here too. How am I going to get back home then? That's a great question. Are we on? That got awkward. Wow. It's a little dystopian. If they're going for the idea of a dystopian future, I think they've got it. It is a dystopian future. Do you think I want Trump to turn the White House into a hotel? It just makes me mad when I have to watch them judge things. I feel like I'm being judged. What I almost wonder if it's happening is if Ed knows which computer is which and he's just trying to troll you. I know he knows. You know he would. I know he knows which is which. I like the simplicity, while at the same time I don't like the simplicity. It's perfect for the average Trump supporter to understand it better, but that's not me. Wow. I'm pretty sure there should be doors in more places. What a dick. The construction paper feels like I could have done it in the third grade. So I give it a five. Five? I thought. Five? Do they know how long we have to work on these? Okay, go. I thought that the overall approach to hashtag MAGA was fine. And I did enjoy the use of the Trump faces. But at the same time, there could have been a bit more continuity throughout the bill. I felt like the Mexico wall was a bit weird. I was a bit less brutal than Edsel giving MAGA a generous seven out of ten. If it's a generous seven, that's still pretty brutal. I do think the execution was slightly crude because the theme seems to be Trump face everywhere. Which, as funny as the Trump faces are, and they are don't get me wrong, I do feel like maybe a little bit more nuanced. Probably would have been good. Would have liked to have seen the actual eagle and snake on the border wall so we don't mistake it for an Italian flag, which I actually did it first. Overall, not bad. Definitively Trump-like. And I gave it a six out of ten. Six. Wow. Looks like no one made it through this round of layoffs. I like the muted colors. It kind of says bleak future. I feel safer. I feel like I have my privacy intact here. I have to give it a seven. Unfortunately, it does feel too real. And it scares me. For me, the Vegas build felt a bit more complete when I thought the theme was Trump, not the future. Why would the theme be Trump? Why did you choose Trump? Why would the theme be Trump? Why did you both build Trump computers? I don't know! I did feel like the facade on the front of the build was a nice touch. It does feel very Trump. However shoddily done. Look at your f***ing house. I liked the imagery of Trump being controlled by an outside force with the gun pointing directly at the side of the head. I doubt that was an actual gun. Actually pointing the gun at his head was good. I like the indeterminate racial family that doesn't let you know if they're trying to get into America or out of it over the Trump wall. And I like the defense mechanisms of the stickyness of the styrofoam on the Trump wall. While the money and fake diamonds inside did provide a very Trump feel, it was very unclear what the message was there. Whether that's America will become prosperous or America will spend too much or it's all just fake and a sham. And overall in the theme of the future, it's a bit tough to say that this really hit the nail on the head. So I gave Vegas a slight edge at 7.5. How granular like the position. Alright, air up John. With that I should do that. First of all, immediately I love how the front is very striking. It reminds me so much of the Trump International in Vegas. It looks exactly like it. If you wanted the theme to be dystopia, you absolutely nailed it. You kind of nailed it with like the muted colors. With like all this going on back here. This is super creepy because it looks like Donald Trump has like channeled his soul into like a young albino woman and then died. I think John Lennon said it best. Sometimes I want to hold your hand just means I want to hold your hand. I should take more points off for that. But what I really liked about this is that I think the theme on this one was much, much more consistent. Like I said, if you're going for dystopia, I think you nailed it. So I gave you, well I would have given you a 9 but I took off one point off this one. I also won't point off this one because the theme was supposed to be the future and I honestly think it's very unlikely that Trump will win. So Vegas gets the win. Oh wow, I did not see this one coming. I actually didn't either. Crushing, crushing defeat at the hands of the world's worst. No one even noticed the paint job on the front. Literally looks like you dragged it across the floor while you were waiting for it to dry. We did. It's just better than crushing papers. So thanks for checking out this edition of Tech Showdown. I apparently lost again and not by a narrow margin. But I think you can let us know in the comments if you agree with the judges or not. Oops. Okay, I was supposed to open the door. Oh my god. Whatever, what happens if I do it with yours? So I'll see you again next week. Next time. On Tech Showdown, like the video if you liked it, subscribe and all that. 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