Mark Rober Builds an Intricate Nine-Part Puzzle Maze to Test the Intelligence of a Clever Crow

Mark Rober, the entertaining science vlogger who previously built obstacle courses for the squirrels and other critters in his backyard, was so frustrated with neighborhood crows stealing his food deliveries that he decided to test the intelligence of a clever crow named Cheryl with a challenging series of puzzles to solve.

Rober put the bird through a nine-part obstacle maze that was very specific to the bird’s skills and was equipped with electronic sensors that triggered the next task, with the eventual reward of chicken nuggets.

These juicy nuggets are the favorite food of an incredibly intelligent crow, but they’re being defended by this bird cage. Because if she wants to gain access to the nuggets, she’ll need to first solve the nine increasingly difficult puzzles I designed to protect them. This crow escape room gauntlet is extremely challenging.

Each obstacle incrementally increased the difficulty levels in accordance with Cheryls high intellect and inventive intelligence, both of which Rober stated that he completely underestimated.

But just like with my backyard squirrels, I will admit that in hindsight, I completely underestimated my adversary.

The maze included using rocks to reach her favorite ball that was floating in a test tube, placing coins to balance a scale, ringing the bell at face recognition three times, place dollars into a box, creating a tool to fish out a cup, stacking cups (including the one that was fished out), righting a ship in a bottle. and breaking open a decorated plastic egg. Cheryl passed the entire maze with flying colors and was able to enjoy her free meal.