“This is a t-shirt cannon. And this is a cannon that just so happens to shoot a t-shirt!”
“In an effort to keep people from picking on me, I decided to create the world’s largest Nerf gun.”
“What is the scientifically proven best way to skip a rock?”
With intros like that, it’s hard not to be interested in engineering.
As a mechanical engineer, Mark Rober sure loves it. He worked for NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory for nine years where he worked on the Curiosity Rover. He worked at Apple for another five doing Product Design.
“This idea that we can understand and predict the world around us using math and equations is what first made me fall in love with science when I took high school physics,” Mark says.
With that in mind, Mark posts one video every month to help others learn and (hopefully) fall in love with engineering, too. In some videos, he creates robots that perform entertaining tasks, such as a moving dartboard that always gets you a bullseye, a rocket-powered golf club and a liquid sand hot tub. In others, he tests strategies to find out the best outcome for unique events, such as the best way to maximize winning at the board game Guess Who, break out of any escape room or cheer the loudest at a sports event.
But he doesn’t just show the results of his tests; he also explains the science and engineering behind how his experiments work, giving the viewer not only what the answer is, but why and how it works.
It isn’t hard to see why Mark’s videos often get more views than he has subscribers. They’re interesting, and they genuinely make learning about science and engineering fun. In the same way that Mythbusters went 18 seasons by studying interesting myths with the scientific method, Mark Rober’s videos are so popular largely due to the intriguing nature of his experiments. Who doesn’t want to know whether sharks actually like the smell of blood, which city’s citizens are most and least likely to return a dropped wallet and which arcade machines and carnival games are impossible scams?
Mark’s content helps teach engineering tricks and the science behind any topic he makes a video on, making it not only fun but also a learning experience–and it’s likely that any kids watching would be more than willing to stay for the teaching portions of the video due to the interesting nature of the videos themselves. In fact, many of his videos feature him showing the children of friends and family his experiments.
Mark also uses much of the content he produces to help alleviate and bring awareness to many issues. For instance, one of his videos explains how to detect malaria in water with 68 cents, and another video explains how a Procter & Gamble packet of powder can make dirty water safe to drink. He’s also partnered with MrBeast, a previously reviewed YouTuber, in order to help raise money to plant trees and remove trash from the ocean.
And while Mark’s experiments are sometimes a bit larger than life, such as the “World’s Largest Devil’s Toothpaste Explosion” and “Car vs. World’s Strongest Trampoline,” he always prioritizes safety in every experiment he does.
Mark’s most popular video is where he created what he calls a “Glitter Bomb,” of which he uploads a new and better-designed one at the end of each year. These videos focus on a fake package that Mark leaves on the porch. When people steal the package and open it, it shoots out glitter and fart spray, and it records the whole encounter. Some parents may find these videos uncomfortable (sometimes for reasons we outline below), and in one instance, the package is shot.
Mark has conducted experiments using blood and urine. For instance, in a video to determine whether sharks are attracted to the smell of blood, Mark uses blood, urine, fish oil and seawater to see which the sharks flocked to most. In another video, Mark teaches us how to measure how much urine is in your pool.
His earliest videos show a few pranks and Halloween ideas, including a couple of videos that show how to take a video on your phone to make unique moving costume ideas. A couple of these are a bit gruesome or creepy, such as a beating heart or a moving eyeball.
Additionally, though Mark Rober himself doesn’t swear in the videos, some substitute words used in his videos may make parents feel a bit uncomfortable. For instance, the words “butt-ton,” “shiz” and “freaking” have all appeared on the channel, and an Australian assistant in one video uses the word “p-ssed off” and “d–mit.”
In the glitter bomb videos, the thieves will often use inappropriate language. While Mark censors the language, some thieves rely quite heavily on swear words for the vast majority of their vocabulary, and instances where God’s name is inappropriately used are not censored (Like wises, uses of the word “d—”).
Mark’s content is interesting and fun, and it is a great learning experience for both parents and children alike. He even teaches an online engineering class for children who want to learn how to make cool ideas of their own. In addition, the more recent his videos, the more kid-friendly they tend to be.
However, some videos do contain some swear words, and while the majority are bleeped out, a couple are still allowed, and parents on the lookout for those may want to consider watching the video through first before they decide whether or not the video in question is appropriate for their child.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
