Design of the Week: Glitter Bomb Trap 2.0

This week’s selection is the Glitter Bomb Trap 2.0 by Mark Rober.

Rober has been here before, having been awarded our design of the week for his Glitter Bomb Trap version 1.0. He’s a full-time video artist who specializes in building outrageous technical projects for a huge worldwide fanbase. 

Last year Rober set about to right the wrongs of the incessant “porch pirates”, who seem to be everywhere, stealing loose packages from doorsteps when the recipient is not around. Rober says that a startling 1.7M packages are stolen or lost every single day!

Rober’s plan was to build a simulated valuable package and place it on doorsteps in hopes a pirate would steal it. But upon opening the package the perp would be surprised by a series of nasty automated features, including wide-area dispersal of glitter and a rather unpleasant smell. 

Rober designed the “Glitter Bomb Trap” to include video capture and automatic upload so all the fun would not be missed. 

Our interest was in the fact that Rober made extensive use of 3D printing in designing the internal structure of the Glitter Bomb. The mechanism had to hold multiple smartphone cameras, the smell emissions system as well as strongly holding the glitter dispersal spinner. 

The original video garnered an astonishing 78M views, which has to be one of the most-viewed videos exposing 3D printing to the public. Version 2 may have a similar response.

Now Rober is back with version 2 of the Glitter Bomb Trap. What’s different? Here’s a list of what’s changed: 

• Four smartphones record activity in 360 degrees to not miss any action

• Two bottles of “fart spray” to double the odor coverage

• A different “fart formulation” that is far more intens

• Automated and instant cloud upload of any captured video

• Biodegradable glitter, instead of the permanent glitter used in version 1.0

• Sound effects are added, including police chatter and a mysterious countdow

• Security cover to make it very difficult to access the internals

• New fake “product” labeling

You’ll have to watch the entire video to see what happens, but it’s extremely amusing. I particularly liked the scene where the perps for some unexplainable reason open the Glitter Bomb Trap in a retail store, much to the surprise of the proprietors who had a big mess to clean up. And much screaming. 

Here’s the whole video:

This type of project, while a sensational stunt, does lend itself quite well to the use of 3D printing. The ability to quickly iterate through a series of designs to arrive at an optimal design is achievable easily with 3D printing technology. 

What will your next project be? 

Via YouTube