Candy Thieves vs Rigged Candy Bowl

These guys just stole my entire

bowl of Halloween candy even though the sign

clearly says take one.

But what they don't realize

is I've spent a year preparing

for this exact situation.

Because this year candy thieves will have to deal with booby traps such as

silly string, collapsible tables,

full-size candy bars being swapped for toothbrushes,

actual human hands to stop the thievery that just materialize

out of nowhere, and even some high-tech

systems producing wanted posters of themselves

all over the neighborhood,

which means they get offered

the healthy candy bowl.

Every year in America

kids dress up in costumes

and knock on doors asking for candy.

But in many cases, if the homeowner is out trick-or-treating

with their own young kids, they'll just leave a bowl of candy out and

then rely on the honor system for everyone to take just one piece each.

And since last year was my final year of making glitter bombs to catch

our porch pirates, I felt it was time for me to graduate

to the true criminals,

the punk teenagers and even sometimes

terrible parents You monster,

give me back who take all the candy from the bowls

so there's none left

for any of the other little kids. What the heck?

So to come up with the perfect revenge,

I knew I needed to enlist the help of the foremost

expert when it comes to Halloween pranks.

We ate all your candy.

Just the kind of person

who would put out a challenge like this.

We ate all your Halloween candy.

You know who told me to do it? Mr. Jimmy Kimmel.

Jimmy, what's up, Jimmy, you are the I told my kids I eat their Halloween candy guy. I am.

I'm the glitter bomb guy.

I feel like if you combine

those, then you get we're going to prank kids who take more than one piece of candy.

Oh, I thought we were going to make kids eat a glitter bomb.

So we kicked off the brainstorm

and quickly stumbled on some good ideas.

Something like 10 times that average weight leaves the bowl.

Devices in the candy itself. Shine on them. That's good.

Or you just start rocking slowly.

As well as some really good Breed monkeys. Breed monkeys.

Get them real crazy. Real crazy.

Teach them to protect their candy.

But what if they're just going to take one though?

Well, then we have a problem.

I don't But in the end, like any pair of good engineers would, we

ran some tests in the interest of child safety. Lost the head.

Probably should make sure that doesn't happen in real life.

For At which point we had all the data we It's important.

It's this work that you're doing. Yeah, of course.

Which meant all we needed now

was a 15-second build montage.

And so in the end we landed at 10 different options

to honor my traditional

approach to engineering of bringing a cruise

missile to a knife Aw.

Starting first by punishing

greedy candy thieves with your standard

run-of-the-mill remote triggered spinning candy bowl.

This contraption also features

a car horn and an RF-enabled

trapdoor with dual sweeping silly string canisters

that will leave the thief reconsidering their life choices.

Next up, we have the standard-looking

table with a catch.

Because if the custom-built

weight sensor under the bowl powered by a load cell or microcontroller

detects that too much weight is removed in too short amount of time, well

then it triggers this quick release, which makes the hinged legs unstable,

meaning the candy thief will think their actions

caused the whole table to

And of course, with safety

always as our number one priority,

those glass jars are actually sugar

glass, which look and behave

like normal glass but are totally harmless.

And also, as it turns out, don't taste like sugar.

For this next one, the thief will come to the door, steal the candy,

and then have no idea I'm about to scare the crud out of them.

See if you can spot me Mulch man.

I'M THE MULCH MAN.

NOW, IF YOUR first thought was that I was hiding as the scarecrow,

that's by design, and the thief will think the same.

Because this rocker crank linkage slowly

rocks the chair back and forth.

But then we've intentionally

positioned the head to reveal that it's fake, luring them into a false sense

of security so they steal the candy

and meet the mulch man.

Now of course, before they take the candy, I can't see what's going on

under there, and a normal porch camera has way too much delay.

But it turns out a baby monitor

is the perfect solution

with almost zero latency.

Next up, we have an actual human hand that somehow materializes

out of a candy bowl to stop any would-be thieves.

And we do this by taking a page from the Zach King playbook

by putting a full-size

mirror diagonally down the middle

so it reflects a fake image allowing me to hide under the table in ready position.

Once again, the baby monitor comes in clutch here to help with the timing.

For this next one, we raise the stakes and drop them right in the

center of a candy theft sting operation

with a couple cleverly concealed lights and a loudspeaker.

Go back and replace your candy. Aw, your candy.

And now with mission accomplished,

the message loop switches to entertainment

all the Fortnite dances.

Now the remaining five ideas really level up the sophistication

because they rely on multiple houses.

Starting with this first one where once the weight sensor detects a steal, the

mailbox containing a Raspberry Pi takes a picture,

runs a facial detection algorithm, then automatically

crops the face and prints this template at a neighbor's house

all within 10 seconds.

Then once the door is answered,

they now know that you now know, and you switch from full-size candy bars to toothbrushes.

Because I honestly remember as a kid feeling so offended when a neighborhood dentist

would pass out toothbrushes

instead of giving us the candy

that was our god-given right.

Now this next one is pretty simple

yet effective because once you've confirmed a steal next door, they come to your

porch and you place a specific

set of candies in their back.

Because one of the candies contains

a simple remote-triggered vibrating motor while the other contains a small intercom.

So we lead off with the buzzing,

and then once we've got their attention,

we substitute for their misguided conscience.

Stop stealing all the candy from the little kids.

This next one's more in the realm of psychological

warfare because we hide this ultrasonic

speaker near these witches

and then play some whisper sounds while the candy thief waits at the door.

Now with the normal speaker, you would still hear noise on the other side

of a perfectly soundproof

barrier because the wavelengths

we can hear are on average 30 ft long, which means the sound can

diffract around the barrier.

But with an ultrasonic

speaker, the wavelengths are really, really short, which means they can't diffract around, which

makes them highly directional.

So the speaker's there.

I hardly hear anything right here,

but when I step to the left,

it's just like in my brain.

The camera here picks up on it a little bit,

but it's just something you have to experience

in real life to truly

This is so weird. Oh my god.

Now the penultimate contraption

is possibly my favorite cuz it sends the thief who steals all your neighbors'

candy on an emotional roller coaster.

Because if you attach two candy bowls to an axle, then link that via

chain drive to a 4-horsepower

fully integrated brushless motor, well then those two bowls will swap spots with each

other at 85 mph,

which means the thief gets real excited

as they approach a bowl of full-size Mr.

Beast candy bars only to find 80 milliseconds

later it's a bowl of full-size toothbrushes.

And our final contraption

is possibly the most intricate.

Because once a theft is detected,

the mailbox records a 10-second

clip, which gets sent a few doors down and merged into a pre-recorded video clip.

So when the thief comes to the door,

this is what they see.

Our newsroom has just obtained some exclusive

footage of more than one piece of candy being removed from a bowl that

is clearly labeled, please take one.

Take a look at this video.

Seems like a normal door approach.

Oh, there it is.

Wow, that is a clear violation

of the please take one sign.

And that's just a shame because every kid who now comes to the door

won't have any candy left for them.

If you're seeing this right now and you have any information

about who these culprits might be,

feel free to contact

our tip line here at the

And while they stare in shock,

you give them an opportunity

to wash down their newfound glory

with a handful of broccoli florets.

Now was all this overkill

just for some kids taking a little extra Halloween

Next, we put up a random assortment of those 10 different contraptions

on 35 porches all across America

and then set up a command center where we could monitor all the candy

bowls in real time,

which meant all we had to do now

was wait for it to get dark.

And while we do that, I should quickly mention if you love a good

harmless prank as much as Jimmy and I,

then this is a magic coin bank.

But when you try and figure it out by sliding the lid forward,

you'll find it has built-in

spider protection, which grandmas love.

And this is a tripwire

you can place anywhere around your house to protect your stuff.

Or heck, even in your stuff.

And those are just two examples

of the build-it-yourself toys that come in a monthly CrunchLabs Build Box subscription.

In fact, the number one rule is they just have to be really fun,

so you don't even realize all the incredible

engineering you're learning every month as you put it together

and I teach you all the juicy physics that make them work.

So, if you want to have a ton of fun while learning to think

and prank like an engineer,

visit crunchlabs.com to learn more.

And as the sunlight

continued to decrease, the eager trick-or-treaters

began to increase, which meant we now just had to wait for the punk

kids or terrible parents

to steal some candy,

and we didn't have to wait long. Please take one.

Guess who's not taking one.

Things started off strong

with the car horn spinning bowl combo.

And there was plenty more where that came from

for anyone else taking more than their fair share.

But don't go sleeping

on the silly MR. BEAST BAR.

IN FACT, SOMETIMES JUST THE MERE PRESENCE

OF THE silly string can

is enough of a gentle reminder to share.

Now, these kids raided the candy bowl next door,

which means 9 out of 10 dentists

we perform the toothbrush bowl swap Is that it?

I'm going to try to take one quickly. It's still toothbrushes. Oh my god. Oh my god.

This kid cleared the candy bowl at the previous house, so he earned

a BOXFUL OF STOP STEALING ALL THE CANDY FROM THE LITTLE KIDS.

THIS IS YOUR CONSCIENCE, BY THE WAY.

SHE WAS REAL stoked with our candy

but less stoked with our audio

And after taking more than their share next door,

these two minions didn't even make it to the porch.

The mirror hand illusion

also did not Mulch. Nope. Mulch man. There it is. Hi kids.

I'm the Mulch Man.

Notice the scarecrow kick

to confirm that he was in fact all alone.

What are you doing?

You didn't take more than you should, were you? You scared me.

How much candy did you take?

I'll put some back.

I I actually give you some OF MY OWN. YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT. Put it back. One more handful.

One hand Okay, that is very cool.

ALL RIGHT, NOW GET OUT OF HERE.

THE MULCH MAN'S ALWAYS WATCHING.

That scared the out of me.

HEY, ONLY TAKE ONE.

ONLY TAKE ONE CANDY. I SAW THAT.

BUT THE MULCH Man also knows it's not happiness

that brings us gratitude,

it's gratitude that brings us happiness.

THANK YOU FOR TAKING JUST ONE. Thank you.

This girl almost walked away accident

until she considered that the only thing better than one full-size

candy bar was two full-size candy bars.

Go back and replace your candy. All your candy.

Now, show us your best Fortnite dance.

And finally, if these kids weren't so focused on taking more than their fair

share, they might have noticed this oddly placed mailbox.

Take a look at this video.

Seems like a normal door approach.

Okay, they're checking out the selection.

Nope, there it is.

Wow, that is a clear violation

of the please take one sign.

In my ongoing quest to be the favorite

I've tried quite a few things OVER THE

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