This Former NASA Engineer Built an Epic Obstacle Course for Squirrels
If you have a bird feeder or a vegetable garden, you likely already know that squirrels are ridiculously smart and determined little critters, seemingly able to outwit and outmaneuver every obstacle you put in their place. But it's not you, it's them. It turns out they can outsmart even a former NASA and Apple engineer—and the insanely elaborate, Ninja Warrior-style obstacle course he subjected them to.
Mark Rober is a popular DIY YouTuber in Orange County, California, who in a former life worked on the Mars-exploring Curiosity Rover. Like many who have tried to tackle a squirrel situation, he first tried a bird feeder with a wire cage—only to discovery that he, as Mark puts it, "completely underestimated his adversary." Mark escalated his defenses to a weight-activated caged bird feeder, but again the contraption fell short. Nuts!
That's when Mark decided to lean on his mechanical engineering prowess, building a multi-stage, squirrel-sized gauntlet to assess what exactly his rodent interlopers—lovingly named Rick, Marty, Frank, and Phat Gus—were capable of. (Spoiler alert: The smart money's on Marty.) There's The Bridge of Instability, The Maze of 1,000 Corridors, The Slinky Bridge of Deception, and The Homewrecker (you'll see why), but our favorite may be The Tourist Trap at the 13-minute mark. (Just see for yourself!) Mark even conducted an experiment to see what nut would make for the most compelling prize. (Cue the chanting: Eat that walnut! Eat that walnut!)
Mark calls the whole thing a fun experiment in "how interesting nature can be in a single suburban backyard." And because he's a man who values innovation, squirrels are understandably his new favorite varmints. To reward his newfound friends for their determination, Mark recently joined the masses of people ordering squirrel picnic tables for their suburban backyards. To be honest, we think Marty deserves his own tiny little watering hole where he can saddle up to the bar and regale fellow bushy-tailed patrons with stories of that time he got 10 million views on YouTube.
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