- 3 hours ago
Mark Robers CrunchLabs S03E02 Backyard Squirrel 2 0 Bank Heist H 264
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00This is a bird feeder, and everything you see surrounding me in my yard is an attempt to protect it
00:05from four thieving squirrels.
00:06If they want the bird seed and the lifetime supply of walnuts in this bank vault, they'll first need to
00:11pass through my nine-part obstacle course.
00:13By design, it's extremely challenging. It's meant to test their mental limits and their physical limits.
00:19I held back no punches, but I have to admit in hindsight, I once again completely underestimated my adversary.
00:25And truthfully, I never thought I'd be that crazy guy in the neighborhood obsessing over the squirrels, but they started
00:31it first when they would constantly pillage the bird seed from any bird feeder I would put up about a
00:36year ago.
00:36That led to me defending it with an obstacle course, which they handily defeated, and so after a year of
00:41ruminating on how to avenge that L with a majorly improved version, and then two months of planning, my buddy
00:47John and I got together for a 20-second build montage.
01:11Here are the basic elements. For starters, here's their favorite bird feeder at the end of the course, and it's
01:17sitting atop Fort Nuts, the most secure walnut vault in the western United States.
01:22Now since birds can fly, they can come and go as they please and eat all the food they want,
01:27but the only way for the squirrels to make it right here is by surviving my nine-part grueling obstacle
01:31course.
01:32Which all starts right here. Climbing up this pole to this platform is the single gateway to enter the course.
01:39Every other pole you see has some kind of countermeasure to keep the squirrel from just climbing up and then
01:44entering the course halfway through.
01:45And so the first challenge is this casino, which may seem like an odd choice until you realize that as
01:50we were building the course, we also built them some cozy little squirrel houses.
01:54So we put them up in a couple different trees, and after a few days, it looked like they'd actually
01:58made some renovations.
01:59So I went to take a closer look.
02:01And sure enough, here's the before, and here's the after.
02:04Even on the inside, they made some questionable decor updates.
02:07So while it might look like they were just using the houses to relax, or stretch, or look out the
02:12window, or like, um, wrestle, the satellite communications gear and the tactical mission planning and the mini vault to practice
02:19cracking a safe hold a completely different story.
02:22This gang of four high-end professional birdseed thieves were secretly planning to pull off an honest-to-goodness Mission
02:27Impossible Ocean's Eleven-style Mega Walnut heist.
02:31Which is why I was going to protect the birdseed and walnut vault with the most state-of-the-art
02:35security measures, just like the casino did in Ocean's Eleven.
02:38So once in the casino, you'll see the slot machine and the classic Vegas buffet, but with a warning.
02:43Take more than an ounce, and you're going to have to deal with security.
02:48Now that I got the squirrels on the run, they'll naturally want to jump to this bar.
02:51But there's a twist.
02:54Like it actually twists, which I think is going to give them some problems.
02:57But if they can figure this out, they'll jump into this crate.
02:59And the good news is that it's filled to the brim with their favorite food, which is walnuts.
03:03And I know this because I tested a bunch of different options, and they always went with the walnuts first.
03:08But the bad news is that once you add a little weight to the system, the helicopter starts moving, just
03:13like the helicopter for Mission Impossible.
03:15Oh, and we've got a baffle here at the top to stop a squirrel from just crawling along the wire
03:19from the fence.
03:20The helicopter stops next to this wall, which seems simple enough, except that the bricks randomly move and adjust themselves
03:25in and out.
03:25And of course, at any time, if they fall off, they've got to go back and start over the whole
03:32course from the beginning.
03:33After that, we come to their hideout.
03:35And this is when they'll switch from defense to offense, because it's where they hang out and plan.
03:39You can see it's sort of messy with their tools and their blueprints on the wall that show if they
03:43open the floor on the elevator,
03:45the elevator shaft leads them underground and into the sewers.
03:48Then if they crawl through the sewers, it will take them right to the control center for a second room
03:52that might look familiar.
03:53And just like in Mission Impossible, their goal is to go up through the ceiling to access the air vents.
03:59But there's no way to make it up there unless they type the password into the keyboard in the control
04:03room next door like this.
04:12And at that point, they can climb the ladder and they're in the vents.
04:15And the vents are a total maze.
04:17There's lots of different twists and turns they'll need to navigate up here.
04:19So at any moment, if they're too lost, they can always exit the whole course by using the one-way
04:24squirrel emergency exits,
04:26which also exists for any enclosed room on the whole course.
04:29And for the penultimate challenge, it's back down from the air ducts through this laser maze
04:33where they'll have to harness their inner Catherine Zeta-Jones.
04:37If they sufficiently touch any of the lasers, the metal base contacts and completes the circuit,
04:42which sends a signal from this microcontroller to a relay to a solenoid,
04:46which causes this pneumatic piston to fire, which slams this door shut for one minute.
04:50And because I'm basically certain they'll try and get to this point by climbing from the roof on top of
04:54this tube,
04:55I've placed a shield here with another enforcement squirrel to try and deter them.
04:58And so finally, if they've made it through the laser maze and everything that came before it,
05:02they've made it to Fort Nuts.
05:04And as far as I'm concerned, if they crack the safe by giving this handle a little turn,
05:09they've earned every last walnut in this bank.
05:13After the course was set up, they could definitely smell the walnuts in the vault,
05:17and then you could see them sort of working things out from the fence line.
05:20And so after two months of prep work, it was time to test our extensive security measures
05:24against this formidable set of 500-gram rodents.
05:31And right out of the gate, we got him with the buffet.
05:36And as he sticks his entire face under the sneeze guard, absentmindedly reading the sign,
05:40you could see the exact moment he realizes he might have screwed up.
05:47And the slow-mo shows Rick just really laying himself out.
05:52Oh, by the way, that's Rick.
05:54All four squirrels have names, and more importantly, like any crew looking to pull off a heist,
05:58they all have specific roles to play.
06:00Starting with everyone's favorite, Fat Gus, who of course is the mastermind of this operation.
06:05On a heist, this is the role of the Frank Ocean or an Ethan Hunt.
06:09Now, I just have to say, for those who aren't familiar,
06:11last year I named one of the squirrels Fat Gus because he loved to eat and was a little on
06:16the hefty side.
06:17But then halfway through, I noticed he had nipples,
06:19which it turns out means he was actually a girl, and a pregnant one at that.
06:23So it was just a whole PR disaster.
06:25And I switched the name to Fantastic Gus and rephrased a few other things.
06:29But to be honest, Fantastic Gus just doesn't roll off the tongue like Fat Gus.
06:33So I asked permission to use my preferred phrasing, and as you can see, I got full consent.
06:38Next up is Rick.
06:39He's the acrobat, the greaseman, the gutsy one.
06:42He's the go-to for any task that is going to require some athletic abilities.
06:46And then we've got Marty. He's the hacker.
06:49Anything with computers or bank safes, and he's your guy.
06:52But while he's really smart, he also scares pretty easy.
06:55And finally, we've got Frank with logistics.
06:57A good heist starts with a good plan.
06:59He's got the whole course memorized, and he's mapped it out and provided blueprints for the team.
07:03And so back to the course, we've got Marty the hacker here,
07:06who again is a bit skittish, so you can see he's coming in pretty cautious.
07:09But who can resist a buffet?
07:13Once again, the real magic is found in the slow-mo.
07:22Eventually, they realize security was just too tight at this casino,
07:25and Rick goes straight to the twist bar.
07:29Excellent.
07:29Here's try two.
07:38And with some motivation for the bird, he's like,
07:40I got this, I got this, I got this.
07:43I don't think I got this.
07:45The real-time replay on this one is great, too.
07:49And at this point, Fat Gus is like,
07:51I'm going to need that crate of walnuts.
07:53Let me show you how it's done.
07:54Which turns out somewhat...
07:56Predictably.
08:06Now, really frustrated,
08:08acrobat daredevil Rick tries a totally different route.
08:11But you've got to admire that effort.
08:19Logistics man Frank knows the wire connected to the fence
08:22leads to the helicopter crate.
08:24So he tries sneaking in the back door
08:28and is also forced to retreat.
08:30And finally, Marty the Hacker realizes
08:32if you're just scared and you run real fast,
08:34the bar doesn't have time to spin on you.
08:36And you can see Rick just replicating the strategy.
08:39So after about two days,
08:41all of them could cruise through the first part of this course
08:43about this fast,
08:44and Fort Nuts was already feeling less and less secure.
08:48Fat Gus is like,
08:49wait, is this thing moving?
08:51I'm good.
08:52Here Rick hypothesizes if he doesn't sit in the crate,
08:55it won't move.
08:56And here,
08:57he rejects that hypothesis
08:59with a legendary leap.
09:01And now is a good time to remind ourselves
09:02that squirrels are one of the few mammals
09:04that can survive a fall from any height.
09:06Because as you can see here,
09:07they make their body super flat to increase drag,
09:10effectively becoming their own parachute.
09:12But just in case,
09:13you okay, Rick?
09:14Yup.
09:15All good.
09:16And Marty the Hacker,
09:17Frady Cat,
09:18is just like,
09:20yeah,
09:21I'm super not down with this.
09:25Eventually,
09:25it's the fearless leader,
09:26Fat Gus,
09:27who demonstrates the ride is definitely worth it.
09:30And soon you've got Frank
09:32and the rest of the gang following suit.
09:35Which leads us to the wall of a thousand moving bricks.
09:38And first up,
09:39you got Fat Gus,
09:40who kicks things right off
09:41with a pull of his parachute.
09:45And Rick
09:47just barely misses.
09:49Skittish Marty gets one taste of a moving brick
09:52and absolutely yeets himself into this tree.
09:55And while there were plenty of instances
09:56where a moving brick did dump the squirrels,
09:59causing them to start over from the beginning,
10:00what was even better
10:01was Marty psyching himself out
10:03in the anticipation that a brick might move,
10:05even though the wall wasn't powered on
10:06for any of these clips.
10:13And thanks in part
10:14to the dutiful supervision of Fat Gus,
10:16eventually,
10:17like all the other challenges so far,
10:19they got it down to a science
10:20where they could cruise by the wall fairly quickly.
10:24And now's a good time to mention,
10:26the squirrels weren't the only ones attempting the course.
10:28This is Splinter the Rat,
10:29and here he is with one of his buddies.
10:31He liked to make the rounds
10:32to all the houses each night,
10:33which sometimes were vacant,
10:34and sometimes they weren't.
10:36There goes Frank to chase him off his lawn.
10:38And you might have noticed the stuff in the house.
10:40The squirrels would gather nesting materials
10:42from various sources,
10:43or somewhat hilariously,
10:45just steal from each other.
10:47Here's a bonus Santa Claus impression
10:48for all the Fat Gus fans out there.
10:50So from Splinter and his buddies
10:52to not at all creepy possums,
10:54there's a surprisingly constant variety of wildlife
10:56that passes through a suburban backyard,
10:58including a dumb dog
10:59who for some reason
11:00is much less interested in squirrels
11:02than he is my camera gear.
11:04Which is a lovely segue
11:06back to the squirrel hideout,
11:07where the heist
11:08was really just picking up steam.
11:34Only alive.
12:03Just uninterrupted.
12:10And after Hacker Marty had accessed the computer and lowered the ladder, Fat Gus followed behind
12:14and joined him in the vents, but in the process, a critical tool dropped down, which led to
12:19a lovely recreation of an iconic scene.
12:37And as a side note, they figured out the exit door pretty quickly, and they functioned as
12:40a one-way door exactly as intended.
12:43And now with the vents, it was Frank's time to shine.
12:46You can see here, he's just double-checking the actual air duct layouts to make sure they
12:50match the blueprints he's memorized.
12:51And once he's satisfied, he steps up, and as you can see, he nails it first try.
12:57You can just sense his confidence here.
13:02Contrast that with Marty, who's like, all right, I think it was a right, no, it's straight.
13:08Was it left?
13:10Crap.
13:10I gotta go check the map again.
13:12And as a result, most of his runs would end up looking something like this.
13:17So here's Frank coaching him from the outside, and you can see Marty's a little defensive
13:21about it.
13:24So Frank hops in so they can work out their differences.
13:28And then with a little encouragement, he gets them going down the right way.
13:32All the while, Fat Gus continues to supervise.
13:36Focus, Marty.
13:37There you go.
13:41Which brings us to the laser maze.
13:44Here's Acrobat Rick's first approach, and he's like, yeah, that's us.
13:48And just as expected, he climbs on top of the tube, and he's like, yeah, I totally got
13:54this.
13:55When in fact, he didn't have it.
13:59In real time, it happens so fast, it just looks like chaos.
14:03But if we slow down this second attempt, we can remind ourselves of how squirrels have
14:08mastered the laws of physics to always land on their feet.
14:10Did you catch it?
14:12The first is the locking of the head on a landing target in less than 300 milliseconds.
14:17If you go back and watch any jump from this video, that locking of their head is the first
14:21thing they always do.
14:22And the second is using conservation of angular momentum like an ice skater to pull their arms
14:27and legs in and out at the right times to rotate fast and then hold in the right orientation.
14:32Combine those two tricks with the flat body parachute and extending their legs at the last minute
14:36to absorb the shock, and they are perfectly adapted for living high in the trees.
14:39In fact, squirrels have been around for over 30 million years, and they've had to evolve
14:43relatively little in all that time.
14:46Then Rick's like, fine, I'll use the stupid tube like a normal squirrel.
14:50What is this?
14:51See, I knew this was sus.
14:56And here's Frank, who just watched what happened and therefore is appropriately cautious, but
15:07he hops right back on the saddle, and this time he nails it.
15:10And in the end, it feels appropriate that the mastermind Fat Gus was the first one to make
15:16it successfully through the laser maze, and then to subsequently make it to Fort Nuts.
15:21I mean, how Fat Gus is this?
15:22Falling not just for one decoy nut, but for both of them.
15:27Which paves the way for Marty the Hacker to be the one to crack the safe, and as you can
15:31see here, he's pretty stoked about it.
15:40First he just checks it out, like, yep, mm-hmm, yep, yep, this is just like the schematic showed.
15:46And then, the big moment.
16:02Once the safe opened, these cargo nets unfurled, which just allowed better access to their loot.
16:07But interestingly, more often than not, after getting a wall nut, instead of jumping off,
16:10they would go all the way back through the course.
16:12Here's jumpy Marty, exhibiting some real PTSD, even though I'd already turned off the whole
16:16system.
16:17So once again, the squirrels took the W, but as far as I'm concerned, they earned it.
16:21And I can't complain with how things turned out, cause Rick buried all his extra nuts
16:25in the yard, Marty and Frank made up and rekindled their friendship, and Fat Gus got some long-sought
16:30quality time with the bird feeder.
16:32So everyone was happy.
16:34Well almost everyone.
16:50I'm happy.
16:52We haven't even heard yet.
16:52And he had him, I just know, but I'm like I wouldn't have to talk to him.
16:54Great.
16:54I think I've had dreams that I've been teaching them.
16:59Bye.
17:05Bye.
17:14You
Comments