NASA Engineer Builds HomePod Fart Spray Glitter Bomb to Stop Package Thieves

We’ve covered many stories detailing episodes of high-stakes and high-value Apple product theft — not only from a variety of the company’s up-scale Apple Stores and third-party big box retailers across the country but even from customers, themselves.

These are such trying times we’re living in, that thieves are out there literally swiping packages right off doorsteps as if it’s some kind of game. Luckily, for those who refuse to become a victim of this sad but growing trend, there are some interesting (and decidedly non-violent) ways of ensuring the safety of your mail. 

Like former NASA Engineer Mark Rober, who recently put his engineering prowess to work and built an ingenious mechanism for getting revenge on thieves who steal packages from doorsteps: a glitter-bomb, constructed using an empty Apple HomePod box and lots of sticky, shiny glitter.

Making of the Bomb

Noting that he got the idea after a package was swiped off his own doorstep — and after local authorities refused to intervene, despite indisputable video evidence of the incident taking place — Rober decided to simply take matters into his own hands.

“Someone stole a package from me,” he says, adding that “Police wouldn’t do anything about it so I spent the last 6 months engineering up some vigilante justice.”

“Revenge is a dish best served fabulously,” the former NASA Engineer quipped.

In their YouTube video documenting the process of building the bomb, Rober and his pal, Sean Hodgins, note that Glitter was chosen in light of its harmless yet sticky nature. And that a pungent-smelling fart spray was baked-in for added entertainment. 

They use a spinning funnel to create a “glitter cloud,” which, upon being released, sticks to essentially anything in its imminent path — clothes, furniture, carpets, upholstery, and even your skin.

The contraption was then packed into an empty HomePod box, which Rober and Hodgins wrapped in clear plastic to make appear more appealing to potential thieves when left on his doorstep in broad daylight. The duo then outfitted Rober’s porch with four high-definition cameras to upload the footage so we could all see (and enjoy) watching the device detonate in the hands of thieves.

Luckily, for Rober and anyone else who delights when bad guys get a taste of their own medicine, it didn’t take long for the first thief to swipe the box off his doorstep.