desymbol: Ex-NASA Engineer Builds An 8-Part Ninja Warrior Obstacle Course For Squirrels And Records Their Epic Battle For Nuts

Mark Rober is no rookie when it comes to viral tech-savvy experiments. The former NASA engineer has made a name for himself as a YouTuber and a mastermind of entertaining and intricate projects. From turning sand into liquid soap and using glow powder to show how fast germs can spread, to testing if sharks can smell blood and building a glitter bomb, it’s fair to say the sky is the limit for this guy.

And this time, Mark is back as a problem solver. You see, every time he would put up a bird feeder in his backyard, the squirrels would come and throw themselves a feast. But Mark is a tough nut to crack and he built an epic obstacle course for them to sweat on. “If they walk through my 8-part ninja warrior obstacle course,” they are free to gorge on the walnuts right next to the birds.

So let’s see what these 22 minutes of squirrel parkour driven by a sheer craving for nuts look like. If you still think it’s a little niche for your liking, just keep in mind it’s the #26 trending Youtube video at the moment with almost 10M views since it went live two days ago.

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This video documenting Mark’s epic ninja obstacle course designed for squirrels is going viral

Image credits: Mark Rober

Mark explains what squirrels have to go through to get their walnuts

Before becoming a full-blown YouTube star, Mark worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for about 9 years, seven of which he spent working on the Curiosity rover, which is now on Mars. He also started a company called Digital Dudz as a side project, which he later sold to the costume company Morphsuits.

According to the FAQ section, recently, he was presented with “an opportunity to return to my engineering roots to come do some ideation type of work for a tech company near San Francisco.” His YouTube channel has a whopping 1.27B total views and 11.7M subscribers.