Mark Rober

Mark Rober
Born (1980-03-11) March 11, 1980
Nationality American
Alma mater Brigham Young University
University of Southern California
Occupation Engineer
Inventor
YouTube Personality
Known for YouTube videos
Digital Dudz
Mars Rover
Website www.youtube.com/MarkRober

Mark Rober (born 11 March 1980) is an American engineer, inventor and YouTube personality. He is best known for his YouTube videos on popular science, do-it-yourself gadgets and creative ideas. His most popular invention is Digital Dudz, a range of Halloween costumes that integrate mobile apps with clothing. As an engineer, Rober spent seven years working on the Curiosity rover at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Early life

Rober grew up in Orange County, California. He earned a mechanical engineering degree from Brigham Young University and a Master's degree from the University of Southern California.[1][2]

Career

Rober joined NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in 2004.[3] He worked there for 9 years, 7 of which were spent working on the Curiosity rover, which is now on Mars.[2] He designed and delivered hardware on several JPL missions, including AMT, GRAIL, SMAP, and Mars Science Laboratory.[4] While at NASA, Rober was one of the primary architects for "JPL Wired", which was a comprehensive knowledge capture wiki.[4] He published a case study about applying wiki technology in a high-tech organization to develop an "Intrapedia" for the capture of corporate knowledge.[5]

YouTube

What started as a single YouTube video of Rober's iPad Halloween costume soon turned into a series of videos that attracted significant attention from the public and the media.

The videos cover a wide variety of topics. Some are simply original and fun, such as his ideas for April Fools' Day pranks[6] or skinned watermelons;[7][8] yet others show how to make useful gadgets for various purposes, such as a snowball machine gun fashioned from a leaf blower and non-invasive filming of primates in zoos;[1] finally, Rober makes popular science videos, such as egg drop competition ideas[9] and a scale model of the Solar System showing the distance of Planet Nine using a drone.[10] Rober summarized his approach: "I love to take something very commonplace and reuse it in an original way."[1]

Additionally, Rober is the host of a popular science TV show on the Science Channel called The Quick And The Curious.[11][12] He contributed articles to Men's Health.[13] He gave a TED speech entitled How To Come Up With Good Ideas.[2] He has also made numerous appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live!.[6]

Digital Dudz

On Halloween 2011, Rober placed one iPad on the front and one on his back, and created the illusion of seeing through his body by linking the two using the FaceTime video chatting app.[14] He posted the video of the "gaping hole in torso" costume on YouTube and it immediately went viral, receiving 1.5 million views in just one day.[15][16]

When he launched Digital Dudz on 3 October 2012 and started selling costumes online, Rober was still doing it in his spare time. With the YouTube video as the only advertising, Digital Dudz earned a quarter million dollars in three weeks. In 2013, his costumes had pockets sewn into the insides and were being carried in hundreds of Party City stores and other specialty shops across the U.S. By August 2013, the app was downloaded a quarter of a million times. Rober holds a patent for the integration of apps with clothing and costumes.[14][17][18] Digital Dudz costumes were featured on CBS News, CNN, The Jay Leno Show, Fox, Yahoo! News, Discovery Channel, The Today Show, GMA, and dozens of other media channels.[19] Rober sold Digital Dudz in 2013 to British costume-maker Morphsuits and left his job at NASA to join the company as chief creative officer. He signed a deal with Disney to create augmented outfits modeled on Marvel Comics superheroes.[17]

Personal life

Rober lives in the Valencia, CA with his wife and son.[20]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Hugh Hart (16 February 2012). "Dirt-Cheap iPhone Trick Captures Great Ape Close-Ups". Wired. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 TEDx Talks (2 July 2015). "How To Come Up With Good Ideas - Mark Rober - TEDxYouth@ColumbiaSC". YouTube. Retrieved 4 May 2016.
  3. ↑ Jesus Diaz (16 August 2012). "Seven Years In the Life of One of the Engineers of the Mars Curiosity Rover". Gizmodo. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
  4. 1 2 Jon Verville; Patricia M. Jones; Mark Rober. "Why Wikis at NASA?". NASA. Retrieved 4 May 2016.
  5. ↑ Mark B. Rober; Lynne P. Cooper. "Capturing Knowledge via an "Intrapedia": A Case Study" (PDF). Computer.org. Retrieved 4 May 2016.
  6. 1 2 Justin Worland (31 March 2016). "Let a NASA Nerd Show You Some Easy and Awesome April Fools’ Pranks". Time Magazine. Retrieved 4 May 2016.
  7. ↑ Martha Cliff (6 September 2015). "You've been slicing your watermelon all WRONG: Vlogger reveals how to skin the fruit in four simple steps... but it's not quite as it seems". Daily Mail. Retrieved 4 May 2016.
  8. ↑ Shay Spence (3 September 2015). "Skinning a Watermelon Is Your New Labor Day Party Trick". People. Retrieved 4 May 2016.
  9. ↑ Brent Rose (27 May 2015). "How to Win Your Physics Class Egg Drop Competition". Gizmodo. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
  10. ↑ Casey Chan (9 March 2016). "This Easy to Understand Scale Model of Our Solar System Shows How Far Planet Nine Is". Gizmodo. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
  11. ↑ "The Quick and The Curious". Science Channel. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
  12. ↑ Alexandra Sims (3 February 2016). "The 'five second rule' is real, say NASA engineers". Independent. Retrieved 4 May 2016.
  13. ↑ "Author: Mark Rober". Men's Health. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
  14. 1 2 Kadhim Shubber (23 August 2013). "Mark Rober left Nasa to make awesome wearable tech Halloween costumes". Wired UK. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
  15. ↑ Charity Johnson (2 October 2015). "Go Hi-Tech This Halloween With These DIY Costume Videos". Tech Times. Retrieved 4 May 2016.
  16. ↑ Heather Kelly (18 October 2013). "Smartphone wounds and other high-tech Halloween tricks". CNN. Retrieved 4 May 2016.
  17. 1 2 Patrick Clark (18 October 2013). "A NASA Engineer Builds a Better Halloween Costume". Bloomberg. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
  18. ↑ Julianne Pepitone (12 December 2014). "Digitally animated ugly Christmas sweaters bring the kitsch to a new level". Today. Retrieved 4 May 2016.
  19. ↑ Digital Dudz. "Select Digital Dudz Media Coverage 2013- Incld GMA, TODAY, Leno, Miley". YouTube. Retrieved 4 May 2016.
  20. ↑ Sara Mitchell (12 October 2012). "Local engineer creates new Halloween costume venture". SignalSCV. Retrieved 4 May 2016.
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