Rober, a former NASA engineer who worked on the Curiosity rover, put his smarts to a more earthly concern recently: stopping jerks who pilfer holiday package deliveries. Rober realized people were stealing his packages (he caught the thieves on his home video) and knew he had to do something.
Rober says he reported the crime to the local police who said they simply didn’t have time investigate the incident, even though Rober had done much of the heavy lifting by capturing the incident on his home surveillance camera.
Rather than go full vigilante, Rober did something far more brilliant: He built a custom-made “glitter bomb” inside a fake Amazon package.
Rober spent six months developing a baited box that blasts glitter and fart spray on would-be thieves when they open their surprise. The device also takes cellphone video of the culprits, uploads the footage to the cloud and can be tracked by GPS.
That’s right, once the thieves opened the stolen package, their car or homes would be assaulted by one full point of glitter and a fart spray device that emitted a synthetic gaseous smell every 30 seconds. And it would be posted online for the world to see.
Rober’s viral YouTube video, posted Monday, covers the development of his clever boxes of whoop-ass, but the best part is watching them detonate on real suspects. The most common reaction was: “What the f***!?”
Check out the video below:
“The moral of the story is, just don’t take other peoples’ stuff,” Rober said. “Not only is it not cool, but on the plus side you’ll never find yourself in this situation.”