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Mark Robers Crunchlabs S03E02 Episode 2 Engsub
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00:00This is a bird feeder, and everything you see surrounding me in my yard is an
00:04attempt to protect it from four thieving squirrels. If they want the bird seed and
00:08the lifetime supply of walnuts in this bank vault, they'll first need to pass
00:11through my nine-part obstacle course. By design, it's extremely challenging. It's
00:16meant to test their mental limits and their physical limits. I held back no
00:20punches, but I have to admit in hindsight, I once again completely
00:24underestimated my adversary. And truthfully, I never thought I'd be that
00:28crazy guy in the neighborhood obsessing over the squirrels, but they started it
00:31first when they would constantly pillage the bird seed from any bird feeder I would
00:35put up about a year ago. That led to me defending it with an obstacle course, which
00:39they handily defeated, and so after a year of ruminating on how to avenge that L
00:43with a majorly improved version, and then two months of planning, my buddy John and
00:47I got together for a 20-second field montage.
01:11Here are the basic elements. For starters, here's their favorite bird feeder at the
01:16end of the course, and it's sitting atop Fort Nuts, the most secure walnut vault in
01:21the western United States. Now since birds can fly, they can come and go as they
01:25please and eat all the food they want. But the only way for the squirrels to make it
01:28right here is by surviving my nine-part grueling obstacle course, which all starts
01:33right here. Climbing up this pole to this platform is the single gateway to enter
01:38the course. Every other pole you see has some kind of countermeasure to keep the
01:42squirrel from just climbing up and then entering the course halfway through. And so
01:46the first challenge is this casino, which may seem like an odd choice until you
01:49realize that as we were building the course, we also built them some cozy little
01:53squirrel houses. So we put them up in a couple different trees and after a few
01:56days it looked like they'd actually made some renovations. So I went to take a
02:00closer look. And sure enough, here's the before and here's the after. Even on the
02:05inside they made some questionable decor updates. So while it might look like they
02:09were just using the houses to relax, or stretch, or look out the window, or like
02:13um, wrestle, the satellite communications gear and the tactical mission planning and the
02:18mini-vault to practice cracking a safe hold a completely different story. This gang of
02:23four high-end professional birdseed thieves were secretly planning to pull off an
02:26honest-to-goodness mission impossible Ocean's Eleven style mega walnut heist. Which
02:31is why I was gonna 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. So once in the
02:39casino you'll see the slot machine and the classic Vegas buffet, but with a warning.
02:43Take more than an ounce and you're gonna have to deal with security. Now that I
02:48got the squirrels on the run, they'll naturally want to jump to this bar. But
02:52there's a twist. Like it actually twists, which I think is gonna give them some
02:57problems. But if they can figure this out they'll jump into this crate. And the
03:00good news is that it's filled to the brim with their favorite food which is
03:03walnuts. And I know this because I tested a bunch of different options and they
03:06always went with the walnuts first. But the bad news is that once you add a
03:09little weight to the system the helicopter starts moving just like the
03:13helicopter for mission impossible. Oh and we've got a baffle here at the top to
03:17stop a squirrel from just crawling along the wire from the fence. The
03:20helicopter stops next to this wall which seems simple enough except that
03:23the bricks randomly move and adjust themselves in and out. And of course at
03:27any time if they fall off they gotta go back and start over the whole course
03:32from the beginning. After that we come to their hideout and this is when
03:35they'll switch from defense to offense because it's where they hang out and plan. You
03:39can see it's sort of messy with their tools and their blueprints on the wall
03:42that show if they open the floor on the elevator the elevator shaft leads them
03:46underground and into the sewers. Then if they crawl through the sewers it will
03:50take them right to the control center for a second room that might look
03:53familiar. And just like in Mission Impossible their goal is to go up through
03:57the ceiling to access the air vents. But there's no way to make it up there
04:01unless they type the password into the keyboard in the control room next door like
04:11this and at that point they can climb the ladder and they're in the vents. And the
04:16vents are a total maze there's lots of different twists and turns they'll need
04:19to navigate up here so at any moment if they're too lost they can always exit the
04:23whole course by using the one-way squirrel emergency exits which also
04:26exists for any enclosed room on the whole course. And for the penultimate challenge
04:30it's back down from the air ducts through this laser maze where they'll have to
04:34harness their inner Catherine Zeta-Jones. If they sufficiently touch any of the
04:38lasers the metal base contacts and completes the circuit which sends a
04:42signal from this microcontroller to a relay to a solenoid which causes this
04:46pneumatic piston to fire which slams this door shut for one minute. And because
04:50I'm basically certain they'll try and get to this point by climbing from the roof
04:54on top of this tube I've placed a shield here with another enforcement squirrel to
04:57try and deter them. And so finally if they made it through the laser maze and
05:01everything that came before it they've made it to Fort Nuts. And as far as I'm
05:05concerned if they crack the safe by giving this handle a little turn they've
05:10earned every last walnut in this bank. After the course was set up they could
05:15definitely smell the walnuts in the vault and then you could see them sort of
05:18working things out from the fence line. And so after two months of prep work it
05:22was time to test our extensive security measures against this formidable set of
05:26500 gram rodents. And right out of the gate we got him with the buffet. And as he
05:36sticks his entire face under the sneeze guard absentmindedly reading the sign you
05:41could see the exact moment he realizes he might have screwed up.
05:47And the slow-mo shows Rick just really laying himself out. Oh by the way that's Rick.
05:53All four squirrels have names and more importantly like any crew looking to pull
05:58off a heist they all have specific roles to play. Starting with everyone's
06:01favorite Fat Gus. Who of course is the mastermind of this operation. On a heist
06:06this is the role of the Frank Ocean or an Ethan Hunt. Now I just have to say for
06:10those who aren't familiar last year I named one of the squirrels Fat Gus because
06:14he loved to eat and was a little on the hefty side. But then halfway through I
06:18noticed he had nipples which it turns out means he was actually a girl and a
06:22pregnant one at that. So it was just a whole PR disaster and I switched the name
06:26to Fantastic Gus and rephrased a few other things but to be honest Fantastic
06:31Gus just doesn't roll off the tongue like Fat Gus. So I asked permission to use my
06:35preferred phrasing and as you can see I got full consent. Next up is Rick. He's the
06:40acrobat, the grease man, the gutsy one. He's the go-to for any task that is going to
06:44require some athletic abilities. And then we've got Marty. He's the hacker. Anything
06:49with computers or bank safes and he's your guy. While he's really smart he also
06:54scares pretty easy. And finally we've got Frank with logistics. A good heist starts
06:58with a good plan. He's got the whole course memorized and he's mapped it out
07:02and provided blueprints for the team. And so back to the course we've got Marty
07:05the hacker here who again is a bit skittish so you can see he's coming in
07:09pretty cautious. But who can resist a buffet?
07:13Once again the real magic is found in the slo-mo.
07:22Eventually they realize security was just too tight at this casino and Rick goes
07:26straight to the twist bar. Excellent. Here's try two.
07:38And with some motivation for the bird he's like, I got this, I got this, I got this. I don't
07:44think I
07:44got this. The real-time replay on this one is great too. And at this point Fat Gus is
07:51like, I'm going to need that crate of walnuts. Let me show you how it's done.
07:54Which turns out somewhat predictably.
08:06Now really frustrated, acrobat 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 leads to the helicopter crate,
08:24so he tries sneaking in the back door and is also forced to retreat.
08:30And finally Marty the Hacker realizes if you're just scared and you run real fast,
08:34the bar doesn't have time to spin on you. And you can see Rick just replicating the strategy.
08:39So after about two days all of them could cruise through the first part of this course about
08:43this fast and Fort Nuts was already feeling less and less secure.
08:48Fat Gus is like, wait, is this thing moving? I'm good.
08:52Here Rick hypothesizes if he doesn't sit in the crate, it won't move.
08:56And here he rejects that hypothesis with a legendary leap.
09:01And now's a good time to remind ourselves that squirrels are one of the few mammals
09:04that can survive a fall from any height. Because as you can see here,
09:07they make their body super flat to increase drag, effectively becoming their own parachute.
09:12But just in case, you okay, Rick?
09:14Yup. All good.
09:16And Marty the Hacker, Frady Cat is just like,
09:20Yeah, I'm super not down with this.
09:25Eventually it's the fearless leader Fat Gus who demonstrates the ride is definitely worth it.
09:31And soon you've got Frank and the rest of the gang following suit.
09:35Which leads us to the wall of a thousand moving bricks.
09:38And first up you got Fat Gus who kicks things right off with a pull of his parachute.
09:45And Rick just barely misses.
09:50Skittish Marty gets one taste of a moving brick and absolutely yeets himself into this tree.
09:55And while there were plenty of instances where a moving brick did dump the squirrels,
09:59causing them to start over from the beginning,
10:01what was even better was Marty psyching himself out in the anticipation that a brick might move,
10:05even though the wall wasn't powered on for any of these clips.
10:13And thanks in part to the dutiful supervision of Fat Gus,
10:17eventually, like all the other challenges so far,
10:19they got it down to a science where they could cruise by the wall fairly quickly.
10:25And now's a good time to mention the squirrels weren't the only ones attempting the course.
10:28This is Splinter the rat and here he is with one of his buddies.
10:31He liked to make the rounds to all the houses each night,
10:33which sometimes were vacant and sometimes they weren't.
10:37There goes Frank to chase him off his lawn.
10:39And you might have noticed the stuff in the house.
10:40The squirrels would gather nesting materials from various sources,
10:43or somewhat hilariously, just steal from each other.
10:47Here's a bonus Santa Claus impression for all the Fat Gus fans out there.
10:50So from Splinter and his buddies to not at all creepy possums,
10:54there's a surprisingly constant variety of wildlife that passes through a suburban backyard,
10:58including a dumb dog who for some reason is much less interested in squirrels
11:02than he is my camera gear.
11:04Which is a lovely segue back to the squirrel hideout,
11:07where the heist was really just picking up steam.
11:37читer,
11:37argentina,
11:37who are they talking about the cultural background
11:39to look at the objects
11:39that have the qualifications of dogs around that pesticide on them,
12:10And after Hacker Marty had accessed the computer and lowered the ladder, Fat Gus followed behind and joined him in
12:15the vents.
12:16But in the process, a critical tool dropped down, which led to a lovely recreation of an iconic scene.
12:37And as a side note, they figured out the exit door pretty quickly, and they functioned as a one-way
12:41door exactly as intended.
12:44And now at 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 match the blueprints
12:51he's memorized.
12:52And 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 was straight.
13:07Oh, was 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 about it.
13:24So Frank hops in so they can work out their differences, and then with a little encouragement, he gets them
13:31going 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, mm, yeah, that's us.
13:48And just as expected, he climbs on top of the tube, and he's like, yeah, I totally got this.
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 mastered the laws of
14:09physics to always land on their feet.
14:11Did you catch it?
14:12The first is the locking of the head on a landing target in less than 300 milliseconds.
14:16If you go back and watch any jump from this video, that locking of their head is the first thing
14:21they always do.
14:23And the second is using conservation of angular momentum like an ice skater to pull their arms and legs in
14:28and 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 to absorb the
14:37shock, and they are perfectly adapted for living high in the trees.
14:40In fact, squirrels have been around for over 30 million years, and they've had to evolve relatively little in all
14:45that time.
14:46So then 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.
15:06But he 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 it successfully
15:17through the laser maze, and then to subsequently make it to Fort Nuts.
15:21I mean, how Fat Gus is this? Falling 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
15:32see here, he's pretty stoked about it.
15:40And first, 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 walnut, instead of jumping off, they would go all the way
16:11back through the course.
16:12Here's Jumpy Marty exhibiting some real PTSD, even though I'd already turned off the whole system.
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, because Rick buried all his extra nuts in the yard,
16:26Marty and Frank made up and rekindled their friendship, and Fat Gus got some long-sought quality time with the
16:32bird feeder.
16:32So everyone was happy.
16:34Well, almost everyone.
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