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Mark Rober

Testing The World's Smartest Crow

đŸŽ„ Testing The World's Smartest Crow

⏱ Duration: 22:54
🔗 Watch on YouTube

Overview

This video documents a complex "escape room" style challenge created for a
highly intelligent crow, Cheryl, to test her problem-solving skills through a
series of nine escalating puzzles. The creator, inspired by his own comical feud
with porch-thieving crows, compares Cheryl’s performance with that of young
humans tackling the same puzzles, offering an entertaining and thought-provoking
exploration of animal intelligence, engineering, and resilience.

Main Topics Covered

  • Personal history and motivation for creating crow puzzles
  • Evidence and anecdotes of crow intelligence
  • Design and explanation of the nine-part crow escape room
  • Scientific observation and study of crow behavior
  • Step-by-step walkthrough of each puzzle and its inspiration
  • Comparison of crow versus human problem-solving approaches
  • Insights into engineering thinking and resilience
  • Promotion of CrunchLabs educational subscription boxes
  • Reflections on animal intelligence and coexistence

Key Takeaways & Insights

  • Crows are exceptionally intelligent: They demonstrate advanced problem-solving, tool use, memory, and even social manipulation.
  • Complex puzzles can be solved by animals: With the right motivation and incremental challenges, animals like crows can tackle multi-step tasks that require understanding cause and effect, tool creation, and pattern recognition.
  • Resilience and iterative learning are critical: Both Cheryl the crow and the children displayed persistence, learned from failed attempts, and adapted strategies—mirroring core engineering and life skills.
  • Humans and animals share problem-solving traits: The experiment highlighted similarities in curiosity, trial and error, and learning from feedback between the crow and young human participants.
  • Positive reinforcement and play are important: Enjoyment and small rewards along the way (like the “tourist trap” puzzle) keep motivation high and learning fun.

Actionable Strategies

  • Break down complex tasks: Present challenges in incremental steps that build upon one another, making them manageable and fostering learning momentum.
  • Encourage experimentation: Allow for trial and error; failure is a natural and valuable part of the problem-solving process.
  • Incorporate familiar elements: Use objects or scenarios that are familiar to the learner (human or animal) to ease the introduction of new challenges.
  • Celebrate small wins: Include enjoyable or “fun break” elements (like the tourist trap photo op) to maintain engagement.
  • Model and teach resilience: Demonstrate, encourage, and reward persistent effort and adaptability.

Specific Details & Examples

  • The Escape Room Gauntlet: Nine puzzles, each inspired by observed crow behaviors or scientific studies, including:
  • Water Displacement Puzzle: Retrieve a wooden ball by raising water level with rocks (Aesop’s fable test).
  • Scales of Justice: Use weighted objects to trigger a switch.
  • Facial Recognition Roulette: Identify the experimenter’s face from portraits to receive rewards.
  • Cash Grab: Place NFC-tagged bills into a reader to unlock a tool.
  • Fishing Hole: Fashion a hook from a tool to retrieve a cup.
  • Cup Stack: Stack cups to complete a circuit.
  • Tourist Trap: A fun photo op with a mini reward.
  • Shipwreck: Pull a cork and string to tip a ship, activating a switch.
  • Egg Drop: Drop an object to trigger a sensor and open the final reward
    cage.
  • Crow Intelligence Examples: Crows using bread as fishing bait, manipulating other animals for access to resources, and recognizing individual human faces for years.
  • Human Control Group: Children tried the same puzzles, showing creativity, collaboration, and iterative problem solving.
  • Cheryl’s Performance: Demonstrated advanced reasoning, tool-making, and memory, sometimes outperforming the humans in efficiency.

Warnings & Common Mistakes

  • Underestimating animal intelligence: The creator admits to underestimating the crow’s abilities, highlighting a common pitfall when designing challenges for non-human species.
  • Assuming success on the first try: Both humans and crows needed multiple attempts and learned from mistakes; expecting immediate success can lead to frustration.
  • Ignoring individual learning styles: Cheryl’s unique preferences (e.g., favorite objects) informed her problem-solving approach—highlighting the need to tailor challenges to the learner.

Resources & Next Steps

  • CrunchLabs Subscription Boxes: Monthly STEM-focused build kits designed to teach engineering and problem-solving skills in a fun, hands-on way, with holiday promotions for free boxes.
  • Adam Savage’s Cage Build Video: The custom birdcage was built by Adam Savage (Mythbusters), with a behind-the-scenes build video available on the Tested YouTube channel.
  • Online Community and Coding Modules: For advanced learners, the Hack Pack offers tweakable hardware and an online platform for more creative engineering projects.
  • Further Learning: Encouragement to observe local wildlife, experiment with engineering challenges, or subscribe to CrunchLabs for ongoing STEM enrichment.
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