TED Talks Daily - How to make learning impossibly fun | Mark Rober

Episode Date: August 22, 2026

What if science class felt less like studying out of a textbook and more like an unforgettable field trip? From viral glitter-bomb traps to backyard engineering marvels, former-NASA-engineer-turned-YouTuber Mark Rober has spent years proving that curiosity is contagious — and that the best way to teach science is to make it impossibly fun. In conversation with TED's Whitney Pennington Rodgers, Rober shares how play, wonder and a healthy dose of mischief can transform the way kids learn ... and gives a peek inside his plan to bring magic to every classroom in America. (This conversation was part of an exclusive TED Membership event. TED Membership is the best way to support and engage with the big ideas you love from TED. To learn more, visit ted.com/membership.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hugh. Think back to your favorite teacher, the one that made you want to lean in. I think for a lot of us, teachers like that felt like an exception. Former NASA engineer turned YouTube creator Mark Rober has spent his career trying to make them the rule. And he says the secret to reaching anyone, student, a skeptic, a room full of strangers, isn't what you would expect. If you want to reach someone's brain, you have to interthrough the heart.

This is why if you're trying to convince someone out of being a conspiracy theorist or someone who believes the earth is flat, you can't go to them with a list of facts. You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. In this conversation with Ted Curator Whitney Pennington Rogers, Mark digs into how he has spent his career, making science impossible to look away from. As a former NASA engineer, he spent years on the most of the most of the most of the most of the Mars Curiosity Rover before becoming one of the most beloved science communicators on the planet. We shared his TED Talk back in May, where he announced a free science curriculum aimed at

making science the class kids actually want to show up for, a talk that, by the way, has become one of our most watched of 2026 already. Mark calls his approach, hiding the vegetables or sneaking real science into stuff that's just fun to watch. They don't care what you know until they know that you care. If you start them knowing that you care, even if it's just like in your level of effort and paying attention to them, you'll find it's easier to reach them. In today's conversation, Mark talks about his boldest project yet. He also explains why he thinks the most important skill in the age of AI is simply knowing how to ask a good question. And he shares the moment on the TED stage that brought him to tears. It's coming up right after a short break. And now

our TED Conversation of the Day. Hello, Ted members. I am Whitney Pennington Rogers. I'm a curator here at TED, and I am so excited to be here with you today for this live member event. All right. Now I want to think for a moment about your favorite teacher. Maybe some of you are students right now and you don't have to pull back into the far reaches of your memory like I do, but I want you to think about this person and the things that made them so special. How excited they might have made you feel, how they made the subject they were teaching you come alive and made you want to lean in. during their lessons and not zone out. I think for a lot of us, teachers like this maybe feel like the exception instead of the rule. And when it comes to science, maybe even more so. But what if that didn't have to be the case? What if science could be the class that kids cannot wait to get to

because it makes them laugh and beg to try everything out there for themselves? Our guest today has spent a lot of time trying to make science lessons just like that. is a former NASA engineer, a YouTube phenom with tens of millions of subscribers, and is undoubtedly one of the most beloved science communicators of our time. There's no question about this. Earlier this year, he took the TED stage at our flagship conference to share his boldest project yet, a $60 million bet on the next generation of problem solvers and a new STEM curriculum designed to make science the class kids actually want to be in.

That talk has since become one of our most viewed talks of 2020. so far. And he's here today to share more with us about that project, the philosophy behind what he does, and break down how he sparks excitement about science again and again for kids of all ages all over the world. Please give a warm welcome to Mark Rober. Hello. How's everyone doing? Hey, Mark, how's it going? Good. Good. Thanks so much for being here with us today. The big reveal in your talk was the public announcement of your free STEM science curriculum for kids ages, I guess grades three through eight, class crunch labs. And you talk a lot about that in the talk, and that's a big thing that you put forward.

What led you to create it? I mean, and to be fair, like I don't talk about the talks maybe like 14 minutes. I talk about it for like two minutes, but the whole point of the talk is to lead up to that in the sense that like peeling back the curtain on how we hide the vegetables and make learning science fun because if there's any subject in school that should be fun heaven forbid it should be science so it's like

we kind of peel back the car on how we do it and it's like okay now that you understand how the sausage is made this is the kind of sausage we will be making for the next five years and so and so like

the impetus for this came actually when my one of my buddies his his kid came into the room she was she she was like in probably eighth grade the time like what are you learning in science i'm just curious right because i do this on my channel and she's like oh we just watched a bill my video today she showed me a worksheet that been copied probably 10 000 time you know each time you copy there's like an artifact that comes along yeah and i was like and i love bill like he's a personal friend but it's also those videos were made in the 90s and this is a generation that is

growing up on TikTok and YouTube, and there's like different tricks to, you know, reach their brains in engaging ways. And I'm just like, man, we should, we should do something like that for this generation because I know, you know, I've had to earn 18 billion views because on in YouTube, you could click on anything else, right? So it's like you kind of get trained by the algorithm

on how to make things engaging. And that was the start of it. And I, one of my superpowers, I think is naive optimism where it's like, it seems really easy when I have an idea. I'm like, oh, yeah, we can do that. Sure. That shouldn't be a problem. It's been so much harder, but like I'm always continuously, naively optimistic. That's like, ah, and I'll be fine. So it's been a complete journey. It's evolved to be way more than I was initially planning on doing. But it's so clear that this is the right way to do it. This is the right approach. It needs to be.

done and we're the right people to do it. So we're just going full steam ahead. I love that. And you said that it's, you think it's the most important thing you'll ever do. And I remember watching, you give the talk and you got a little emotional as you were sharing this. And if you can remember back to being on the stage, what were you thinking about in that moment when you got really choked up? I don't know. Like, I really do have such a soft spot in my heart for teachers. Like if I just take about teachers, even like right now a little bit, like I get a little emotional and it's like,

like teach it's so tough, especially today to be a teacher just because of a lot of factors. And it's kind of the most important job in on the planet. And so, and they're not compensated as well as they, like we should be ashamed. I think I said that like we should be ashamed of like the support teachers actually get for the importance of what they do. And yeah, I don't know. I just, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the underdog.

And for the, especially an underdog who really, really, really, really deserves it. And so if I'm in a position to help them out, then it just feels like, you know, what is life but working hard at work worth doing? And like this feels like the most worthwhile work and like, you know, the most impact that I can, you know, have and affect change in like the most positive way. Because it's just no one's done anything like this. And then when we're ready to release it too, you know, a lot of times with ed tech and things, adoption is so hard, but like we're already, teachers already show my videos in 40% of classrooms, but it's jello pools and squirrel obstacle courses and glitter bonds. It's not necessarily totally aligned with

the curriculum. So all right, let's take all those tricks, make something that is totally aligned, exceeds all the state science standards, and then put it out there. And then I'll just tell, you know, I could tap a mic and get 50 million people to listen. So I'll just say, hey, if, you know, tell your teacher, you want to watch this and you want to, you want to do this for your class curriculum. And I'll sell that directly to the teachers. And we'll have a map of the whole United States at every single school district. And we're going to have three teacher and three parent volunteers, every single district. So like, we're going to roll this out in a way that like no one's ever been able to or done. And then we'll also go, you know, properly through

the states. For bottoms down, top up, we're just going to get this out there. And not because it's like I've skin in the game, but like we're making sure it's five times better than anything else. Like we're independent folks are like running actual like curriculum studies and versus there's control in a classroom, because I don't want to waste my time or my money or anyone else's money in time if this isn't way better at it. Like, that's the hypothesis. So we're just going to tweak it until it is way better and just get this goodness out in the world for free.

I know a lot of folks, especially some of our younger members who are watching, are really interested to hear more about you and your journey. And so I'd love to talk a little bit about that. I think most people who follow you know that you have this background as an engineer at NASA, and Apple, and that before you started doing the work that you do, when would you say that your love of science began? I mean, like, from a early age, I think I just had a, you know, if anyone here has more than one child, I know kids come pre-programmed, and I just have an inclination towards kind of math and

science and the physical world, you know, taking part of the remote control. also just like coming up with cool ideas. Like the first job I ever wanted to do was be an architect, but specifically designing McDonald's playplaces. So I remember I had like white sheet of paper and my pencil and my rule. And I was like, okay, you're going to start here. Then the ball pit's going to be here. There's going to be these tubes.

Like all these cool designs, which is kind of full circle moment because now we have Crunch Labs, just like our headquarters, which is like a Willy Wonka factory for engineering that has secret passageways and foam pits and, you know, pistons and pianos that play themselves and staircases. It's an infinite slinky staircase. And a robot, you can play rock, paper, scissors against that you can never beat. So it's like, actually my first job I wanted, I eventually got just in the very secure it, securitus route.

So, yeah. And then I think specifically when I took high school physics, I was just like, oh, this feels very good. that like I can predict the world around me with math and equations. And there's one right answer. It doesn't matter where I grew up or what language I speak. You know, if I drop this rock off the building, like we will all come up with the same answer. And then not just that, you can literally predict the future.

You can build something that you can send to Mars that having never gone there, it's like, well, we have the equations. It should actually hit the planet. If we launch at this point when it's 130 million miles away, if we launch at this velocity, at this trajectory, eventually those two should hit. And then we could get from the upper atmosphere, 25,000 miles an hour down to a comfortable six miles an hour to land in seven minutes.

Like you could predict all of these things. And that it's like a crystal ball that actually works. And that is very appealing to me. And a lot of folks who have shared some questions about your story or your journey are just curious about engineering specifically. Like how did you know that that was the path when you think about all the things you could be in the STEM world that this was where you wanted to go? Yeah, I think specifically mechanical engineering really appealed to me versus like electrical because I like to be able to see and create and build something physical I can touch. because there's a lot of different engineering. And I don't know.

It's just one of those things. Like the more I got into it, the more I was like, ooh, I like this. And then straight out of school, I got a job. I just got really lucky to work at NASA. You know, my resume was just in a pile of resumes, right place at the right time. And I think that what's the saying?

Something like, fortune is what happened when preparation meets luck or something. And certainly I got a little lucky. And yeah, and then I was at NASA for a decade. Seven of those were working on the Mars Curiosity rover. So my hardware's up there on Mars. I think currently it's 120 million miles away. You can see it in the night sky, the little red dot. And I know that like I touched and designed and built and tested, integrated something that's on that specific dot in the sky is really cool. Actually, another really cool thing about Mars. Mars is really fun is there's not really a lot of oxygen, so things don't break down and like rust, basically. So long after us humans are gone and all of our structures and everything

has crumbled away and nature has just taken over everything in a million years, aliens will come and they'll see these rovers on Mars and just be like, what the heck? Where did these come from? I don't get it. Yeah, you've built these things that will out, outwe're outlast and outlive you and probably all of us on this call in some way. All of us and everything we've built. Like, you know what I mean? Like in a million years, they'll still be there. And every single structure on earth is crumbled the way into dust.

So it's like pretty wild. You know, you liken what you do to sort of like hiding the vegetables, right? Like you're essentially wrapping like important hard to swallow things in glitter and things like that. And you do it using like humor and spectacle. and, you know, now you're offering the blueprint for people to do this themselves. And I'm sure there are a lot of teachers, though, who watch and think, you know, well, but I'm not Mark Rover, and I can't do it the way that you do it. So, like, what would you say to people who feel like they don't have the personality,

I guess, to pull some of this off? Yeah, I would say, I mean, and this is like the point in the TED talk was, like, the trick to make a video go viral, the trick to sort of like remembering is kind of like how I framed it is like, you just have to feel something in your heart. Like if you want to reach someone's brain, you have to inter through the heart. You can't start here. This is why, you know, if you're trying to convince someone out of like being a conspiracy theorist or something, someone who believes the earth is flat, you can't go to them with a list of facts. like try and reach their brain and why it's not flat. Like you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. Like the reason they got into that is they had a friend and it like it was a community

and they're feeling they're getting something here that feels really worthwhile. And so you got to start here. And for me, that is in the TED talk, full up this trash can full of ping pong balls, right? Or it's someone's full package from my house and everyone knows that feeling. So I, you know, engineered a glitter bomb with fart spray to get them back, records them on four phones and uploads it to the cloud. Like, you have to evoke some kind of visceral reaction for people to remember it, for people to care, to affect change.

And so I think that's step one. And even in the talk, I did this like in a meta, I don't know how many people even picked up on this. But at the end, when I was like talking about class crunch labs and, you know, I said, like, sort of all those teachers out there, the trenches like, I want you to know reinforcements are on the way. Like when I got to that punch line, like, I was very adamant that Ted let me like play music, not just in the video, but in the auditorium because it's like, this is me demonstrating my point of how you hide

the vegetables, of how you get people to remember, of how you have impact, is like you have to feel something here. And music helps with that. And so, you know, if if you're a teacher out there and you feeling like you're not like reaching the kids, like start here, not here. You're not, it's not like if you just used a slight different word to explain it, you know, then it's going to work. Like they don't, they don't care what you know until they know that you care. And that it kind of speaks to that. And so I think if you start them knowing that you care, even if it's just like in your level

of effort and like paying attention to them, like you will, I think you'll find it's easier to reach them here. And this is the beauty of class crunch labs, too. It's like, I do realize that, you know, people have different skill sets and abilities, right? And for whatever reason, the way we teach science, we have solved a lot of that motivation gap, which is like 90% of the challenge of teaching.

And so it's like, let's team up. Like, I can't do this on my own. You can't just play a video in a class and expect it to actually teach them. But let's team up. So that's the whole point of class crunches. I kick it off with the video and then the teacher takes it over and it's like asking and giving you questions and like getting them going. And then I come back with the video and I throw it back to the teacher.

So like that's the only way this could work. And that's kind of the premise behind it. It will feel like sort of co-teaching with you in a way. 100% it will feel like co-teaching. And honestly, the teacher still, the teacher is the hero to be very clear. And I'm kind of just like teeing it up for that. And just like, hey, kids, I'm going to say this thing. Now your teacher's going to take it from here.

And they become the focal point. And I just keep like teened up, you know, giving them an assist. I love that. You know, you mentioned at one point during our conversation that this is a generation of kids who are consuming things differently. It's not, you know, it's not Bill Nye's science generation of consumers. And I guess when you think about where kids are today, do you think there's a bigger appetite for the kind of content you're creating now than there might have been a decade ago because of how people are looking at stuff online. Yeah, it's a question. I would say, like,

I mean, human brains don't change that much from a single generation to a single generation. I mean, it takes hundreds, if not thousands, of generations to, like, have us evolved. So I think the raw DNA was always there, but just like the ability. I think like, yeah, the ability, the fact that YouTube even exists that, you know, when I grew up, you'd have to wake up on Saturday. If you want to see a cartoon, set your alarm and you get two hours of it on like ABC on Saturday morning. Now you can just like every cartoon that has ever invented, every single episode is available in like a window. So it's like you have all this content here, which is a, which is a blessing and a curse.

It's like it makes it challenging. You know, I have to constantly update sort of how I'm doing what I'm doing to stay, you know, the audience appetite can change. And what used to be spectacle and interesting and make you have that visual reaction 10 years ago, like it takes more now, right? So it is this almost like arms race of keeping the content interesting and relevant such that I can, evoke that visceral reaction and then reach the brain with like the cool thing I want them to remember. But it's a challenge, but it's one I welcome and I think it's really fun. And it keeps it

fresh and interesting for me, you know? And of course there's like a debate, you know, that's happening out there about screens and kids and attention. And of course, you're most successful people on the planet capturing people, especially kids' attentions on screens. So how do you think, I guess when you factor the work you're doing into it, how do you, think about the role you play in that conversation and yeah i think an important part about it actually is that um and one of the early feedbacks we've got from these studies that they're doing a big part that i i just briefly touched on the talk is we have the videos we have the teacher leading them there's these hands-on activities where you're actually like say for example for kinetic

energy actually for potential energy that's a really fun one you build a little little tower and then you know those water blobs that like you see sometimes that lake where someone jumps on and then someone goes flying well for potential energy you know the higher you well we actually don't say this but we started out with this lesson that's the anchoring phenomena so you're like ooh that is interesting showing people flying show a car go down and like a crash dust dummy go flying like all these visual things you get you hooked but then in your classroom you get a um you get like a Ziploc bag, you make your own blob, and you make your own little tower.

And then you have a little guy that goes flying. And we don't tell you the equation for potential energy, which is, I'll say here, which is mass times gravity times height, MGH. You just start dropping different things. And what you start to notice is there only two things affect how your guy goes flying. The higher you raise the thing that you're dropping,

that somehow seems to have. effect. And also, if it's same height, but heavier, also seems to have effect and sends your guy. So you're kind of like scooby-doing your way to this equation without even giving you. So you get like an intuition for it, which is much more valuable than just memorizing an equation. But what's really fun is like the guy that goes flying, it's this little crash test dummy. And these can be really expensive that like force sensors to measure how much G-force. And so the constraint I've given the toy engineers, you know, these product designers, the engineering degrees, is like it can't, for a classroom, it can't cost $10, can't cost $5, it has to cost $0.

Literally has to be made from just stuff teachers have a line around the classroom where you'd find in the trash can. And so for Connecticut Energy, we build these little cards, which are a note card and two, you know, binder clips. And then like the tops of a of like a, of like a, of like a soda bottle are the wheels that you poke a hole through. And so these hands-on activities that the kids are doing for each, for each, you know, engineering or each principal, each science, which rule are really where a lot of the learning is coming. Again, we're talking it here. When your science, when your blog guy goes flying, like, oh my gosh, did you see mine? Look how high mine went. Suddenly, they're stoked. They're engaging. They're showing each other versus like sitting in a

classroom and a teacher just sage on the stage being like potential energy is mass times gravity times high please memorize this right you start the other way around you start with the wow and then and then we give you the how but you got to start with the part that engages your heart first so that's the point is it's not just like sit back and listen to me tell you potential energy to mg it's more like i tee up the problem the anchoring phenomenon for that unit in potential energy is He was like, wait, why? Wait a second. Look, go back. Play that back.

Why did he go that the kid go this high one time? But then the next time we went way higher. The heck's going on there. Right? And then the kids scooby-do their way to the answer. We're never speed spoon feeding at each lesson. They get a little bit closer to that answer. It's kind of turning science education on its head.

And we didn't even invent that. Like open sciad. It's a great example of a, they kind of pie. year this of like 2019. Like, so they've done a great job of like just showing how much better you can teach science, how much more it can be remembered, how much more exciting it could be if you do it this way versus just like I said, sage on a stage. Here's the right answer.

Memorize it. Or even just person on screen who's telling you you're in a lot of years. Yeah, or just person on screen. The thing is it's very engaging and it's very like, but also like almost half of the downloads so far of the pilot has been homeschooled folks who do homeschooling to make it engaging so but even then they are seeing it on the screen but then they are taking it and they're doing stuff in real time it's not just engaging on a screen um i think you can't ignore that and i'm really good friends with sal con you know who does con academy um obviously very connected to ted

and yeah and he's he's mentioned this like you know we'll probably partner up in way. We are a yes and situation too. Like that's why we're telling everyone they can use our curriculum. If other people are doing curriculum, they should come to Crunch Labs. We'll show them what we're doing. We'll share notes. This is a rising tide, you know, raises all boat situation. We want this to work for homeschool, charter school, private school, title one school, like everything. This is a shotgun approach. And that's why we're making it free is because as soon as you charge a dollar creates this friction. So we just want to create this goodness. And if people even there's people who charge for curriculum uh you know and if they want to use our

curriculum in theirs and charge for it fine you know maybe they have to pay a license fee to donate to our nonprofit which is crunch slabs.org but like everyone is this is open source like anyone can use this you know what I mean like we don't have our only goal is just reach an impact there's no world where we make any money off this don't go away when we come back more of Mark's conversation with Whitney, including questions from some of Ted's youngest members right after a short break. We have a question from Shendie S about, you know, how far this reach goes, you know, wondering if there's interest and opportunity in making this accessible to people who are outside of the U.S. at some point. And, you know, 100%. That is the ultimate goal. We're very good at walking, you know, crawling before we

walk, walking before we run. A lot of our downloads, it's free. You can go to crosscunchlops.org. and you can download all the curriculum. They're editable. So like even the curriculum, it's not like a PDF. We put it in Google Docs. So you could take that and you can copy and paste it. You could change it and make it whatever you want.

So they can exactly what you want. And eventually we will, you know, once we nail it in the U.S. and like have it figured out, then yeah, it's a matter of scaling that worldwide. And, you know,

I think there are science, standards in the U.S., I think there are another, a number of countries who are starting to adopt our science standards, and that makes it easier. But you know, you've got to start somewhere. Because currently different countries do have, like, slightly different standards, instead of trying to make something for everything. We'll make it for ours. We know we've signed standards, and we know 95% of that will be pretty applicable to others. But then, you know, country by country, we can slightly tweak it as needed. Well, I think thinking about just sort of the future and where things had, not just for crunch labs, but for science education in general, especially online, you know, everyone, of course, like so many conversations all roads lead to artificial intelligence and how that factors in. And what, like, for you, when you think about the work you do, if you're thinking, you know, 20 years ahead when we have, and even today, we have AI tutors and VR classrooms, all of that. Like, what is, how does that change what a human, like, you're thinking, you know, you know,

you or a teacher looks like in that equation. Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I think as you get, I mean, I have this piece of glass and metal here that I can use my thumbs to touch in a very specific way and get an answer, a very good answer to any question on earth. Any question I could potentially ask, even if it's very personal to me and my inputs in my world, like I can get a very good answer. And so the real skill becomes asking the question, the right question, or even asking a question, period. In other words, curiosity. And I think as AI becomes more and more, like, things that inspire curiosity and that reach here become more important than ever. And I see it, I think AI could be a great tool. I mean, there's one example, which I really love, I was thinking,

about the other day where it's like even in a classroom if they have you know some some classrooms do have computers there there could be a situation where there's like an AI Mark rober or AI bam who's also one of our 20s years of crunch slabs that everyone loves where her or I it's like all right design your catapult you know for this potential under potential like design it and then show it to AI Mark rover you know and then I look at it and it's an AI version of me it's like oh that's really good, but where's your energy source? You might want to re-look at that. And then they go back and then they show it to me again. I'm like, I love that. That's so good. Raise your hand. Tell your teacher you're ready. So it's like I'm actually kind of like tutoring each, you know, me or

bam or someone is like working with them. And then there's the teacher. But I think you, I think you'll always need a human element there. Even if it's like that and it's like a simulated human element, just like a robot coming in and teaching you something, I think you're fighting against a couple million years of evolution there. That's never really going to do it. So it's like how do you combine, how do you make the best out of it? I don't think it's the right answer to be like,

issue everything AI and be like, absolutely not. No. I don't think it's the right answer to just a robot should be doing all of these things. So it's like what's the best of both worlds? How do you combine those in a way? that's like that maximizes the impact. And I think there's going to be some great ideas there. Yeah, I think there's really powerful.

You know, another good example is like what we're making with class crunch lives is the fresh ingredients, you know, but you can you can make different meals with those fresh raw ingredients. So a teacher could be like, look, I have 17 students, you know, half of them have this learning disability. We've already covered this topic and this topic. topic. They struggled with this. They nailed this. Take the cross-climpshs agreement, this next unit, and customize it for me, right?

And it would be really good at moving all the ingredients. Okay, this is going to speak just to what you need. But you got to start with something good. The input has to be good to get a quality output. And so I see that that's another really great use case where AI would be awesome with this. It's more, yes, and it seems like just how can you do it? both. Yeah, yeah. Well, Mark, we have some fun questions from kids who are either members or somehow became TED members themselves before they became adults. And so I'm going to share some of those with you. Usually people don't put their age when they share a question, but we have a lot of that. So Winston K, who's eight, asked if you plan to visit space one day and how common will,

do you think space travel will be by 2040? Winston. What a great. By when? 2040. Which is soon. Yeah, 2040, I think we'll definitely be on Mars. I was just, I don't know if I'm allowed to say, but I will say three days ago, I was at SpaceX talking about something potentially in the next year or two. if everything goes, right?

So space is definitely in my near future. Also, there's some, man, there's so much cool stuff to say. In the next year or two, I'm going to be going to some very, very interesting places. And for everyone else, space travel, I mean, you can get to Australia from Los Angeles in like 45 minutes if you travel to space. So I think it will become much more common. I think for everyone. I mean, Winston, it was, Winston's eight years old, right? Winston, for sure, you will go to space.

I'll say that much. It's exciting. I feel like there's a state, keep watching Mark Rober for more information about like where, what's there. There's some cool opportunities coming up that kind of revolve around getting people excited about science education by me going to some pretty wild places. All right. All right.

We'll take it. So Rory, who didn't share their age but said that they are a kid, asked what is your favorite thing that you've ever made and how do you think of what to make next? How do you think what to make? I mean, favorite thing I've ever made? That's hard. We just did a robot goalie that Rinaldoin couldn't score on like a. a soccer goal that moved back and forth at 40 miles an hour, and then we tracked the shot, really.

That was really fun. The, you know, as far as what to make next, I think that's the beauty of being engineers. It's not like, oh, the ideas come. I mean, almost never. Certainly when I was doing it on my own, now we'll do it just because it's kind of fun with the team, but like they almost never come from like,

I'm going to sit down today for an hour, and I will brainstorm ideas. Never. Like, I came up with the squirrel obstacle course when squirrels were stealing my bird seed. And most people would just be like, gosh darned, the squirrels are stealing all my bird seed. But I saw an opportunity and I was like, wait,

what if I really made them earn it with an eight-part Ninja Warrior obstacle course? The birds could come and go as they please. The only way for a squirrel they do that is if you'd like solve all my things. and I'm going to name them. And, you know, I'm going to make it a thing. So it's like, or someone literally stole a package from my porch.

And I was very sad. And I was sad for about a week. And then I was like, wait a second. What if I devised away to get back at these guys? I put her over on Mars. So I should be able to come up with something that would be fun and exciting to get some revenge. So so much, so many of the ideas just come from conversations. everyday life.

The key is you just always have to have that part of your brain engaged of like, ooh, what would my solution be? So if you could start thinking like that, I think you'd be surprised how many opportunities are right in front of you at all times. You just got to get your head in that mind space. And I think that is some, I do get that feedback sometimes from parents where it's like, my kid watched one Mark Rober video and suddenly they're inventing ways to,

you know, capture the rainwater on the roof and power a light bulb. and to take the remote and turn it into like a, you know, a beam sensor when their kid and their sister enters the room. I love that, you know, I love being the catalyst for everyone thinking in their own domain, how they can, you know, come up with their own clever ideas. They don't have to be that complicated, right? But like, literally, if you're watching this right now and you're a kid or if you're an adult,

like, you know, a good thought starter is like, how do you turn off the light in your room while you're in bed. You know, that could look like a lot of them. Maybe it's a string on a thing that comes through. Maybe it's like a weighted thing. Maybe it's like a target that you shoot your dark gun at that hits it. You know, that can be a very, using a lot of just duct tape and ingenuity and junk around your house.

Like, what does that look like for you? And then once you do that, you'll realize like, ooh, that was cool. I learned this. And now I'm going to figure out this new thing. How do I make my door so it automatically closes? You know, you can just, it's a really fun way of seeing the world. Well, a ton of folks, Paul, who is 13, Soful, who's 11, Luca, who's 7, they all want to know what is the hardest or most interesting part of engineering.

I think the hardest part is also the most fun part, which is like it's never been done before. You're willing something into existence that's never existed. So that's the opportunity. The challenge is like it doesn't exist because it might be really hard to make it exist. And so it's just this constant feedback loop. The number one mistake people make when they're trying to build something is they want their final version to be there, to be, they're the first version to be their last, the final. And nothing that exists in the world, you know, these scissors right here went through so many prototypes to get through this final form, did not start looking like this.

And so same with these headphones, same with this, literally this cap. Like the amount of revisions that this has gone through to get here is in the hundreds. And so that is the challenge. It's like just start somewhere. Start with cardboard and duct tape as your first prototype and then get better and better and refine it until it is like something that works really well. And each time you solve a few more problems and do another version, solve a few more problems. So that's the great opportunity and the great challenge. It's work and it's iterative, but that's the fun part.

It's a journey. Well, Mark, as we're winding down the conversation, you know, we've talked so much about what you're creating with Class Crunch Labs and just what you've been doing just in general with creating science content for all these years. When you're, you know, 80 or an old man and you're looking back, at all that you've done. How do you think you'll know that class crunch labs worked? How will you know that what you've done was successful? I'll never get to that point. And I'm okay with that. I love mountains to climb. You know, I don't tend to look back very often. It's more just like,

oh, but what else can we do? So it's like someone else can figure out if it's been successful or not. Like that's, I mean, I will, I will always be analyzing it and figure out what more we could do to tweak it to make it better. But like, I don't engage a lot in like, oh, let me look back and be like, wow, look all we've accomplished because there's so much more cool stuff to do. Like there's always more mountains and fun things. And like that is the joy, you know, it's the happiness of the pursuit, not the pursuit of happiness. And so I get the most joy and happiness when it's like, I take something exactly what I just said, the iteration and like making a little bit better, making a little bit better. And so if someone else wants to look at it when I'm 80 and be like, oh, it's good.

And therefore, you know, mission accomplished, great. But I won't. I'll be like, yeah, but we, you know, we haven't got it nailed in Korea yet. So let's do that. And that's not to say, like, I'm not happy or satisfied. Like, I do take great satisfaction. but I take satisfaction of like the leveling up and then hey sure enough what you find I think at some point is you have this body of work behind you that speaks for itself that hopefully has impact but like

I will I don't ever want anything named after me like a building I don't I don't believe in generational wealth I don't like all that stuff is so let like even the concept of legacy to me doesn't even make a ton of sense I don't personally I just don't get it that's not what I'm working for And so I appreciate you the question. I think it's the right question to ask. And it's an opportunity to say like it almost is confusing to me because that's just not how my brain works. It's like, ooh, what else do we do?

How else with the improvement is. Yeah. It's the process. You're just constantly in there. The process. And then if you do that, there are things, I think, do tend to work well. You incrementally every year you're improving by 5%. That's like compounding results, you know.

Well, those feelings. like words to live by and maybe a good place to end. Thank you so much, Mark, for everything you've shared. I've learned a lot. I know everyone in the comments have been saying how much they've learned. So thank you for sharing all this with us and taking some time today. Love it. Thank you guys so much. I really appreciate the time. That was Mark Rober at a TED membership event in 2026. If you're curious about Ted's curation, visit ted.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today. Ted Talks Daily is a

podcast from TED. This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Lucy Little, Emma Tobner, and Tonzica, Sungmar Nivom. Additional support from Daniela Ballerazo, Christopher Faisi Bogan, Valentina Bohanini, Ban Ban-Chang, Brian Green, and Lainey-Lott. Learn more at at podcasts.com.com. I am Elise Hupe. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feet. Thanks for listening.