Mark Rober really loves to build things. So when this home electronics tinkerer discovered that some neighborhood thieves were ripping off Amazon packages from his porch, he did what any self-respecting former NASA engineer would do: He built a glitter bomb made to look like a boxed-up Apple HomePod, and he built it to capture video of the entire thing.
This wasn’t some amateur affair. Rober spent six months designing and testing different bait package set-ups that included cameras and various glitter dispersal methods. He used a 3D-printer, a custom-printed circuit board, GPS, and four phones with cameras. Oh, and fart spray. Seriously. The fart spray is really what puts this thing over the top.
The video, which is up on YouTube, shows just how Rober pulled it off. And he even lends the device to friends who also had packages stolen.
If it seems weird that Rober spent six months on this thing, you’ll learn at the end that the video is sponsored by NordVPN. So it makes sense that the production values are pretty damn good.
Yes, it’s an ad, but it’s pretty awesome as far as ads go. And in a world where everything is garbage, we’ll take a cool ad over shitty reality any day.
Update, 2:03pm: Below is a YouTube video from Sean Hodgins, who helped Rober build the glitter bomb. He goes into some of the details of how this thing works.
We’ve also reached out to both Rober and NordVPN to find out more information about the “theft” shown in the video. We’ll update when we hear back.
Update 9:50am ET, December 21: As many expected, at least some of the “thefts” in the video were faked, Rober has admitted. He has since edited out the parts known to be bogus from the video.