I’m not really sure how my kid found this, or even why, but he asked me about it last night. The predecessor to “it” in this case was a 2012 YouTube video that was part of the video streaming site’s annual “YouTube Rewind” video series from 2010 to 2019, the last two of which received such negative reactions (the 2018 video was the most disliked video on YouTube, the 2019 video was the sixth) that the series was discontinued. But back in 2012, things were different. It was a different world, a different internet. And I was only briefly part of YouTube Rewind in 2012, but I might as well tell you about it.
My child, Otto, was hooked on Internet culture right before he was born, or from an early age. I mean, the period of the late 2000s and early 2010s has a weird fascination for him, and I can’t blame him for that. I feel the same way when it comes to cars, and have always been fascinated by cars that were made about 10 years before I was born.
Anyway, he vaguely remembered me doing something for one of these. And I don’t remember exactly how he found this out, but right away we were watching a YouTube Rewind video from 2012, and I ended up showing him the part that I was involved with. The actual official video (the original post doesn’t seem to be on YouTube anymore, but there are reposts) ended up reaching over 194. million The view count was probably largely due to the fact that South Korean star Psy appeared in the video, even though the video was all loosely themed around hit songs from that year that I think everyone remembers. Gangnam style.
Anyway, I’ll reupload the video in time for my little contribution here.
See the little robot probes running across the screen and being blown away by Minecraft-style explosions? I built it.
My friend Michele worked for the production company that created the video. They wanted to make a video of a fun version of the Curiosity rover that so excitedly landed on Mars in 2012. The livestream of the landing was a big hit on YouTube, so it made sense to include it in the video. Anyway, Michele came to me to build a small remote-controlled rover called Curiosity. Although we were short on time and money, I was happy to do it.
What I ended up creating was a caricature that closely resembled what the real Curiosity rover would look like, but I tried to include important elements. It has six wheels, articulated black “legs”, a cyclopean camera on its long neck, and a finned RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator) mounted on its back. I was aiming for a “cute” version of Curiosity, and I think it worked?
I remember putting two toy RC trucks together to make a six-wheel chassis. Apex in Sun Valley, California, acquired a large number of complex-looking parts that had a large amount of aerospace industry surplus parts. Inside the box were batteries and an RC receiver. You can also drive it with a remote control. The front axle was steered, but I can’t remember if both rear axles or just one was powered. In any case, it was driveable, although not very fast.
I think Michele said that for the actual video shoot, they did some shots while driving with RC controls, and then pulled with hidden wires when they needed it to be faster. The final video contains both parts.
I know that all the people in this video are big names in YouTube and pop culture at the time, but the truth is, I barely know most of them. Otto at least knows who they are. But the part I’m most happy about in all of this, the part that actually makes me a bit of a star, didn’t happen until many years after the video.
As you can see, the small rover Curiosity was not destroyed, despite the explosion looking very realistic in the video. In fact, Michele kept it in her garage and brought it out again in 2020 to use as a set decoration when she was working on a TV show featuring Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) scientists who worked on Curiosity’s Mars landing.
One of the people introduced on the program was Bobak Ferdowsi.
Some of you may remember Ferdowsi from that time. He gained much notoriety as the “man with the mohawk” seen in the JPL air traffic control shots, and became a kind of celebrity. Of course, he doesn’t just have a remarkable hairstyle. He’s a really impressive space scientist, doing important and exciting research. Watch his TED talk here.
He wanted to maintain the curiosity that I created, and Michele gave it to him. That makes me really happy. I can’t imagine a better place to live. And little did he know that this ready-to-assemble, remote-controlled toy would end up 33.9 million to 250 million miles away with one of the key people who made it happen.
I haven’t thought about this in years. I guess my child’s past obsession with internet culture isn’t so bad after all.
