About Superhuman
What is Superhuman?
About the Contestants
How were the 10 contestants chosen?
How were the Winners Chosen?
The Superhuman tests
The Experts
Scoring System
The Superhuman Leaderboard
The Eliminations
The Presenters
What is Superhuman?
Superhuman followed a group of ten exceptional men and women as
they vied for the title SUPERHUMAN. With the help of some
of the country's leading scientists, Superhuman put them through
the most comprehensively designed human performance testing seen
on television.
Superhuman identified key areas of human performance that separate
high achievers from the rest of the population. Our scientific tests
were devised to test these key areas to find out what makes these
incredible people quite so special.
The winners had to combine exceptional abilities ranging from fearlessness
and extreme endurance to sleep control and emotional intelligence.
During the tests, which were carefully monitored by experts, the
contestants underwent trials of memory, co-ordination and endurance
while being subjected to conditions including hypoxia (oxygen starvation),
extreme g-force and even a simulated helicopter crash into water.
The experts even calculated the likely age at which our contestants
will die, based on a series of factors including their family backgrounds
and lifestyles.
About the Contestants
Aged 20-40, the contestants had already achieved great things in
their lives. By agreeing to take part in the show they demonstrated
a desire to find out what makes them stand out from the crowd.
Meet
the Contestants
How were the 10 contestants
chosen?
Superhuman was open to anyone over 18 who had excellent fitness
and intelligence and were available for up to 6 weeks of filming.
We received over 2,000 applicants and selected five men and five
women on as much on their innate abilities as their life achievements
and formal qualifications.
All contestants were put through a series of medical and psychological
tests before being selected for the programme to ensure they were
suitable to take part in all of our selected tests.
In particular, they all represented excellence in their chosen
fields.
How were the Winners
Chosen?
The male and female winners of Superhuman were the two contestants
who performed best overall in our 12 tests. This was reflected on
the Superhuman Leaderboard - the male and female contestants in
the top positions on this Leaderboard won and had ultimate accolade
of being crowned SuperHuman.
The Superhuman Tests
Our contestants were tested in the following 12 areas:
These tests were devised by leading scientists / experts in their
fields from universities and organisations across the UK and were
co-ordinated by Dr Kevin Fong, co-director of the Centre for Aviation,
Space and Extreme Environment Medicine at UCL. All tests adhered
to rigorous and relevant health and safety procedures.
The Experts
Superhuman used leading experts and researchers in their fields.
Uniquely, the experts were given ownership of the tests. That means
they designed each test, worked out the scoring, recorded the data
and commented on the results.
Meet
the Experts
Scoring System
All our tests were designed to give a good spread of results across
the contestants. Whenever a drawn result was possible, a secondary
test or some other means of separating the contestants was built
into the design of the test to act as a tiebreaker.
After each test, our contestants were ranked according to how well
they performed. They were then split into male and female groups
and ranked according to their position in that group. Five points
were given to the best performing man and woman, four points for
the next and so on down to 1 point for last place (i.e. ranked 5th
out of the men or women).
Contestants were allowed to refuse to take part in a test. If they
did so they received no points. If they took part in a test but,
for whatever reason, failed to complete it, they received the lowest
rank for that test and the points that accompanied it.
As contestants were eliminated from the competition, the points
for the lowest rank were also eliminated. So, for example, before
Test 7: Attractiveness, the two lowest scoring contestants were
eliminated and took no further part in Superhuman. As they were
now only 4 men and 4 women left the best performing man and woman
could still score 5 points each but the worst performing would now
score 2 points each.
The Superhuman Leaderboard
The Superhuman Leaderboard was the running points total and the
current overall ranking and league place after each test for each
contestant - adding together all of the points each contestant had
scored so far.
The final positions on the Superhuman Leaderboard decided who won
in each group.
Eliminations
There were two rounds of eliminations:
After 6 tests (i.e. after the Physical Endurance test), the two
lowest scoring contestants (one man and one woman) overall were
eliminated and took no further part in the programme, leaving 4
men and 4 women to battle it out in the remaining 6 tests.
After 9 tests (i.e. after the Sleep Control test), the two lowest
scoring contestants (one man and one woman) overall were eliminated
and took no further part in the programme, leaving 3 men and 3 women
to battle it out in the remaining 3 tests.
The Presenters
Our Presenters were Robot Wars' Julia Reed and Dr
Kevin Fong, co-director of the Centre for Aviation, Space and
Extreme Environment Medicine at UCL.
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