Mark Rober is an AmericanYouTuber, engineer, inventor, and educator. He is known for his YouTube videos onpopular science anddo-it-yourselfgadgets. Before he became a YouTuber, Rober was an engineer withNASA for nine years, where he spent seven years working on theCuriosity rover at NASA'sJet Propulsion Laboratory. He later worked for four years atApple as a product designer in their Special Projects Group, where he authored patents involving virtual reality inself-driving cars.
Rober joinedNASA'sJet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in 2004.[5] He worked there for nine years, seven of which were spent working on theCuriosity rover, which is now onMars.[4] He designed and delivered hardware on several JPL missions, including AMT,GRAIL,SMAP, andMars Science Laboratory.[6] While at NASA, Rober was one of the primary architects for "JPL Wired", which was a comprehensive knowledge capturewiki.[6] He published a case study about applying wiki technology in a high-tech organization to develop an "Intrapedia" for the capture of corporate knowledge.[7]
Science communication
While at NASA, Rober began making viral videos.[3] His videos cover a wide variety of topics, sparking ideas forApril Fools' Day pranks[8][9] and teaching about beating anescape room and filming primates in zoos non-invasively.[3] He also advocates for science in many of his videos.[10][11][12]
In October 2011, Rober recorded his first YouTube video. It shows aHalloween costume that used twoiPads to create the illusion of seeing through his body.[13] His video of the "gaping hole in torso" costume wentviral, receiving 1.5 million views in one day.[14][15] The following year, Rober launched Digital Dudz, an online Halloween costume company that specializes in Halloween costumes based on the same concept as the video (to which Rober holds the patent). The company took in $250,000 in revenue in its first three weeks of operations, and by 2013 his app-integrated costumes were sold in retail stores such asParty City.[13][16][17] The costumes were widely featured on news channels such asCBS News,CNN,The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,Fox,Yahoo! News, theDiscovery Channel,The Today Show andGMA.[18] He sold the company to UK-based costume companyMorphsuits in 2013.[16]
Demonstration of Mark Rober's glitter bomb
In December 2018, Rober posted a video showing how he trickedparcel thieves with an engineered contraption that sprayed glitter on the thieves, emitted a foul odor, and captured video of the thieves.[19][20] The video went viral, receiving 25 million views in one day. Rober later removed two of the five incidents caught on tape after discovering that two of the thieves were actually friends of a person he hired to help catch the package thieves.[20][21] Rober posted a follow-up in December 2019, teaming up withMacaulay Culkin and featuring an improved design.[22] Rober would post another follow up a year later with a third edition of the bomb.[23] While designing it, Rober collaborated withJim Browning,Scammer Payback, and various state and federal authorities to use the glitter-bomb bait package as a tactic to track and arrestmoney mules and their supervisors, who were working withscammingcall centers in India to rob elderly people of thousands of dollars. This was in conjunction with a multi-YouTuber movement to get back at and shut down scam callers, while raising awareness to prevent other people from being scammed.[24] The videos resulted in the shutdown of these call centers and the arrest of 15 senior officials involved in the scams.[25]
In 2020, Rober released the video Backyard Squirrel Maze, showing a backyard obstacle course he built to deter squirrels from stealing food from his bird feeders. He released a follow-up video of an updated obstacle course a year later. By September 2023, the original video had 114 million views; the second video, 80 million and the third, 25 million.[26]
Rober has contributed articles toMen's Health,[27] and gave aTEDx presentation in 2015How to Come Up with Good Ideas[4] and another one entitledThe Super Mario Effect – Tricking Your Brain into Learning More.[28] He has also made numerous appearances onJimmy Kimmel Live!,[8] including guest-hosting the show in July 2022.[29]
In 2018, it was reported that Rober had been secretly working on virtual reality projects forApple,[30] including the company's on-board entertainment for self-driving cars, for which Rober wrote two virtual reality-related patents.[31] Rober worked as a product designer in Apple's Special Projects Group from 2015 to early 2020.[32] In 2020, Rober starred in aDiscovery Channel hidden-camera showRevengineers alongsideJimmy Kimmel.[26] He also starred in the seriesThis is Mark Rober on Discovery.[33]
In October 2019,MrBeast and Rober released a project labeled#TeamTrees, after a tweet that suggested that MrBeast should plant 20 million trees. MrBeast and Rober worked with YouTubers across the globe in an effort to make this come true. The goal was to raise $20,000,000 for theArbor Day Foundation by 2020, while the Arbor Day Foundation would plant one tree for each dollar raised.[34] In 2021, he founded#TeamSeas with MrBeast, which raised over $34 million to clean upbeaches andseas, along with removing one pound of trash for each dollar donated, with help fromThe Ocean Cleanup.[35]
Rober and MrBeast launchedTeam Water in 2025. The project is a collaborative fundraiser that is a follow-up to the Team Trees and Team Seas campaigns.[36] By August 2025, over $40 million was raised forWaterAid.[37] He is also set to host aNetflix competition in 2026. The show is to be produced byJimmy Kimmel andCrunchLabs.[38]
Rober is the founder ofCrunchLabs, an educational technology company he launched in 2022. The company creates hands-onSTEM learning experiences and subscription box services (known as CrunchLabs Build Boxes) that contain building projects and engineering challenges for children.[26][39]
Later, on October 29, 2021, Rober and Donaldson created #TeamSeas, another fundraiser which had a goal of $30 million. The money went toThe Ocean Cleanup and theOcean Conservancy, two not-for-profit organizations. They planned to use this money to remove 30 million pounds of debris and trash from the ocean.[42]
Finally, on August 1, 2025, Rober and Donaldson created #TeamWater, a third fundraiser with the goal to raise $40 million forWaterAid.[43] The campaign promised to provide 2 million people with clean water.[43]
Personal life
Rober moved toSunnyvale, California, in 2015.[32] Rober is an advocate forautism awareness, as his son has autism.[44] In April 2021, Rober and Jimmy Kimmel hosted a live stream, raising $3 million in support ofNEXT for AUTISM.[45]
Rober was previously married, until his divorce in 2021.[46]
Awards and nominations
In 2021, theInstitution of Engineering and Technology awarded Rober a one-off prize as STEM Personality of the Year[47] and later named him an Honorary Fellow in recognition of his contribution to the engineering profession.[48]
In 2024, Rober was presented with theFIRST Robotics Competition Founder's Award at theFIRST Championship in recognition of his efforts to expand access to STEM education and robotics programs.[50]
^abVerville, Jon; Jones, Patricia M.; Rober, Mark (November 4, 2011)."Why Wikis at NASA?".NASA.Archived from the original on March 31, 2021. RetrievedMay 4, 2016.
Media from Commons
Quotations from Wikiquote
