Mark Rober is an American engineer, inventor and educator, and he's a genius! No, really! He is known for his YouTube videos on popular science and engineering concepts. Before YouTube, Rober was an engineer with NASA for nine years, where he spent seven years working on the Curiosity rover at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Following this, he worked for several years at Apple as a product designer, where he authored patents involving virtual reality in self-driving cars.

   Mark became interested in engineering at a young age, making a pair of goggles that helped avoid tears while cutting onions. Rober earned a mechanical engineering degree from Brigham Young University, as well as a master's degree from the University of Southern California.

   While at NASA, Rober began making viral videos covering a variety of topics. His first YouTube video shows a Halloween costume using two iPads to create the illusion of seeing through his body. The video of the "gaping hole in torso" costume went viral, receiving 1.5 million views in just one day. He founded a digital costume company based on his designs.

   In 2018 Rober made a video showing how he tricked doorstep parcel thieves with a contraption that sprayed glitter on the thieves, emitted a foul odor, and captured video of the thieves. This video too went viral, receiving 25 million views in just one day. He also used his glitter bomb packages to help arrest money mules, who were working with scamming call centers in India to rob elderly people of thousands of dollars. The videos resulted in the shutdown of these call centers and the arrest of officials involved in the scams.

   Rober made a video, called Backyard Squirrel Maze, illustrating his backyard obstacle course to deter squirrels from stealing food from the bird feeder.

   Rober is an advocate for autism awareness, as his son is autistic. In 2021 Rober was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Institution of Engineering and Technology in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the engineering profession.

   Mark's current project, besides making incredible videos, is CrunchLabs, which promotes science and engineering education for kids, who can sign up to receive a project packge every month that lets them build a scientifically based toy.

Here are some of the Youtube videos Mark has made, almost all of which went viral:

  • Backyard 'Squirrel Olympics' Obstacle Course What began as an obstace course to keep squirrels out of his bird feeder became much more than that when he saw how smart the squirrels were. Highly entertaining!

  • World's Largest Elephant Toothpaste Explosion The title says it all!

  • A Giant Supersoaker A water gun that shoots a stream of water at 272 mph

  • Egg Drop from Space The ultimate competition

  • Snowball Machine Gun Win any snowball fight!

  • Automatic Strike Bowling Ball Controlling the ball with a remote control after it's launched

  • Bullseye Every Time Dart Board A dart board moves using cameras, pullies, gears and motors, to track a thrown dart and maneuver itself so that the dart hits the bullseye. Eerie to watch

  • Rocket Powered Golf Club Dangerous, but fun

  • Swimming Pool full of ... Orbeez, Jello, and more

  • World's Largest Nerf Gun Really!

  • Domino Robot A machine that will lay out a path of tens of thousands of dominos in fancy patterns so you can watch them fall




Visit YouTube. Watch his videos. You'll become a fan just like me!


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