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National Conference in Anaheim • April 15-18, 2026
Hiding the Vegetables: Turning Spectacle into Science
Thursday, April 16 • 9:30-10:30 AM
Speaker: Mark Rober, CrunchLabs
About the Session
Mark Rober has spent his career proving that when learning feels like play, the impact lasts a lifetime. From landing rovers on Mars to launching CrunchLab, he’s mastered the art of “hiding the vegetables” using jaw-dropping spectacle to sneak in real science. Mark shares how teachers can harness the same magic in the classroom and gives an exclusive look at the most ambitious project he’s ever taken on—one designed to inspire millions of future problem solvers.
Mark Rober
Mark Rober has amassed over 14 billion views by creating incredible science-focused builds and pranks on his YouTube channel, with 71 million subscribers and counting. In the summer of 2022, Rober announced his secret project, called CrunchLabs, a massive Willy Wonka-style factory of creativity in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the team creates each original, buildable engineering toys and the super fun (and science-packed) videos from scratch with an express focus on getting as many brains as possible excited about science and engineering.
Since its founding, CrunchLabs has offered a monthly subscription for kids that delivers original STEM toys and exclusive videos that entertain and teach STEM principles. Kids can’t get enough - the first run of Build Box sold out in under a week. Build Box's success paved the way for Hack Pack, the second product from CrunchLabs that demystifies coding and robotics for teens and adults with robot-in-a-box builds. Today, there are hundreds of thousands of subscribers and millions of boxes shipped. Plus, there are a few lucky subscribers each month who win an expenses-paid trip to hang out with Mark at his secret lab and more.
Rober is also known for his YouTube videos, including glitter bombing porch pirates and phone scammers, making mazes for squirrels in his backyard, the world's largest and smallest Nerf gun, and more.