Revengineering

WATCH: High-tech glitter-fart bomb helps man get revenge on Amazon package thieves

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glitterbomb, Amazon, theif, Mark Rober

When former NASA engineer Mark Rober videotaped a neighborhood thief stealing an Amazon package from his front door, he felt violated. When the police told him it wasn’t worth their time to investigate, he felt powerless.

So he decided to take revenge into his own hands by creating a booby trap package that ejects massive amounts of glitter and fart spray as soon as it’s opened. Even better, the package records the thieve’s reaction, all for our viewing pleasure.

The package itself is a genius bit of “revengineering.” It contains a GPS-sensing chip that, when moved from Rober’s front porch, sends a signal for four mounted camera phones to begin recording. The phones were positioned to capture the thieves’ reactions from 360-degrees, no matter where they stood.

It also contained a rotating cup that shoots out massive amounts of glitter in every direction and a small machine that delivers five sprays of fart spray every 30 seconds, something which ensures that the thieves will throw the package away before they realize that they’re being recorded. Just one spray is enough to clear a room, Rober says.

Even if the thieves destroyed or dismantled the package, the phones inside still automatically upload their videos to the cloud, allowing Rober to see their reaction. The phones also allowed Rober to track the package’s location, allowing him to retrieve it and play the prank on several different thieves.

Lastly, he shrink wrapped it and put on a fake shipping label addressed from Kevin McAllister, the hero from the 1990 comedy Home Alone, to Harry and Marv, the film’s unfortunate thieves who fall prey to Kevin’s many household booby traps.

Okay, enough nerd talk. Let’s enjoy several thieves getting their just desserts.

If you’re wondering why an LGBTQ blog is sharing this video, it’s mostly because we like rainbow glitter. But also Rober’s package is a sort of “glitter bomb,” an activist tactic that became popular around 2011 when queer protestors used them anti-gay politicians like Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, Randall Terry and Michele Bachmann’s conversion therapy-loving husband Marcus.

Transgender activists even glitterbombed gay sex advice columnist Dan Savage over his allegedly discriminatory comments.

We honestly haven’t heard of anyone being glitterbombed since around that time — queer dance parties seem to be the modern-day protest of choice.

As such, Rober’s glitterbomb is the most high-tech we’ve ever seen. And many Twitter commenters are hoping that he starts selling them.

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