Transcription
I am in a Tesla on autopilot, moving at 40 miles per hour toward a fake wall like the ones in Roadrunner. Stop! Please! I am doing this to see if the Tesla autopilot system can be fooled. Because it relies primarily on simple cameras, instead of expensive technology. And we are here today to conduct a series of tests under harsh conditions; to see how those simple cameras perform, compared to other cars that use more advanced technologies. Wow! And the story of how I became a crash-test dummy in my own car... Oh my god!
It began 6 months ago at Disney, while I was sneaking into the famous dark ride called Space Mountain. I may look larger in that coat, but as you can see through this infrared camera, it's no ordinary coat. Because it hides some advanced automotive technology. Awesome! 43 million people ride Space Mountain every year, but unlike famous rides like Colossus, Space Mountain is in near total darkness, meaning nobody knows what the ride actually looks like. Which, in my opinion, needed to be solved with a special covert operation.
In fact, I have wanted to make this video for over 20 years; even before I had a YouTube channel; because I would go to Disneyland and tell myself, someday there will be the technology to let us map ‘Space Mountain’ accurately. So, this is a very important moment for me. It is known that every good covert operation needs a three-step plan. The first step, is entering Disneyland with my technology and getting past tight security. If I succeed in that, step two will be traversing the park and avoiding guards on my way to Space Mountain. And finally, in step three, I will need to sneak in and ride without raising suspicion, to achieve my childhood dream. And if you think all this is an exaggeration; let me tell you, I have some precedents.
First row, please put your phone away! Getting kicked out of amusement parks for science. I'm following you, man, why are you doing this to me? In the first step, I took a large jacket, and made a small pocket inside to hide my secret technology. I walk with a slow, stumbling gait to make it look real. And because they force you to go through metal detectors; I temporarily hid my device with a bunch of tools in my camera bag, hoping it wouldn't be discovered. Can I go through? We will wait until your bag is fully checked for prohibited items. And even though this moment was scary; I had to pretend to be calm. Like this. Excuse me, can you stop filming? And indeed, security was very strict. But our ruse was even tighter. Okay, we finished the first one, two more to go.
Once inside, I immediately went to the bathroom to prepare properly. Now I had to get to Space Mountain without raising any suspicions from any park security guards. This is harder than you think, because Disney secretly employs a bunch of security officers dressed as regular visitors. So I couldn't trust anyone. And so, to blend in and look like a regular visitor, I stopped to eat sausages. We're doing this for mission safety. Not because it's very delicious. After a few critical moments, I managed to enter the building. Okay, we finished two; now comes the hard part.
Now that we're in, let's explain why my coat looks like this when seen with an infrared camera. The reason is that this is a very small LiDAR scanner. And it fires 640,000 laser pulses per second to completely map the environment. On the legal side, you will find on the back of the ticket that you must abide by all park rules. And if you check the prohibited items list on their website, you will find that it is not allowed to bring roller skates, tasers, or burnt remains. Gross, but the prohibited items list doesn't mention chest-mounted LiDAR scanners. Technically, I'm not breaking any laws by precisely mapping this entire ride to half an inch accuracy. Don't ruin it, Rob! We'll do it.
After passing the last ride attendants, I reached the appropriate point. And this is the most appropriate time to point out that the final confrontation is in the control room here, with the person who monitors all the infrared night-vision cameras, and he is the person I feared the most would stop the whole operation. Because when we tested this to see how inconspicuous the LiDAR was, as you can see here, it was obvious. Because it illuminates the entire place. By the way, LiDAR stands for Light Detection And Ranging, while radar is Radio Detection And Ranging. Basically, it's like there's a bunch of laser pointers inside a casing, firing beams all over the room. And every time one is fired, you see how long it takes for it to hit the target object. And since we know the speed of light; by measuring that time, it will tell us how far the object is. For example; it will take twice the time to detect a laser on an object twenty meters away, compared to an object ten meters away. But how can the sensor track 640,000 laser pulses firing at the same time? It turned out amazingly that they happen one after the other, so the sensor only needs to track one pulse at a time. And this works because the speed of light is very high. In fact, if you slow down time immensely, the laser takes four seconds in slow motion to hit the target, then you can wait 30 minutes in that slow motion time frame before sending the next pulse. In fact, it's easy for the sensor to know which specific laser pulse it's measuring, even though it happens 640,000 times per second. And now, it's time for the execution phase of the secret "mousetrap" operation: Let's go!
It was a great feeling to experience something from my bucket list that I wanted to do 30 years ago. But as I feared, when our cart returned to the station; they stopped the ride and announced its closure. All rides are on hold. Meaning I'm about to have an unexpected encounter, with a bunch of guys whose muscles are much bigger than mine. Your ride will resume in... But it turned out to be an electrical problem; meaning the mission was accomplished safely. It's like a dream come true! I wanted to do this even before I had a YouTube channel. And the only major mistake in the whole operation, was forgetting that they take those silly pictures at the end of the ride, leaving behind incriminating evidence. I forgot to put it away! This is awesome!
By the way; this is "Harrison". And he founded the company that manufactures these portable LiDAR systems. After we finished other rides like Haunted Mansion - Let's go! - and continuing my efforts to go undercover; we returned home so "Harrison" could process all the data. And after a few days; it was time. This is from the LiDAR device you were wearing. This is amazing! All of this in complete darkness. The awesome thing is that we can visualize what was recorded as the ride progressed. And as you see here; you can get an idea of what the device saw in real time during the ride. But even better, is that we can now use that data to create a 3D model of Space Mountain using an army of 3D printers. And this means that for the first time; the mystery will be solved. It's done!
While all the printers were working hard, we also reviewed the data we captured from the Haunted Mansion ride, where we found two very important discoveries. First, the first room you enter, is just a fancy elevator that takes you down to start the real ride, which is not inside the mansion at all. When you walk down this corridor, you are actually passing under this hill that you see here. And when the ride starts, you are outside the park. But if that's true; there should be evidence besides the scan we did; and we actually found it; if you look at this shot, you can see a corner of a large building structure. And if you check that on Google Maps, you can see a huge warehouse above ground, where the ride actually is; and it matches exactly the scan we did. This is a very clever engineering feat from Disney's creative engineers. And the second discovery is that they use a lot of thin, semi-invisible curtains to create many illusions like these flying ghosts. And while the eye might be deceived; but as you see here, it's impossible to hide from the LiDAR scan.
And you can imagine some great uses for LiDAR technology in the real world. Like your phone scanning your face to unlock itself, or when archaeologists use it to find lost ancient cities from the sky. Or, for example,... in cars. This car automatically saved itself from crashing, because it uses a LiDAR sensor, which, as you can imagine, would have saved Wile E. Coyote a lot of pain over the years. And the reason it works so well, is because it does point cloud at 640,000 laser measurements per second for the car's brain to show exactly what's in front of it. And it works extremely well, as you can see here, I can maneuver around these obstacles in real time and the windows are completely black; I only look at this point cloud, through the virtual reality headset. Hold up, biker.
However, Tesla cars rely only on simple cameras, and image processing for navigation. And to find out if this technology is really too simple; we conducted a LiDAR vs. camera showdown consisting of six stages, culminating in a historic test between Tesla and cartoon physics. We'll start with the LiDAR-equipped car. The first test is this child standing in the road. I don't know why he's standing there. This is totally unsafe. Go. The test speed was 40 miles per hour. I should put on my seatbelt! The LiDAR should detect the child and hit the brakes at least 60 feet in front of him, and it turned out that... It was simple. Now it's Tesla's turn. Driving straight towards a child is a very bad feeling!; but this is for science. We're going very fast now. With only simple cameras, the Tesla was accelerating. Oh my god! But it did detect the child. Oh... But not in time to stop. No! It was from a CrunchLabs fan. If you have a Tesla, there is a positive side. Because we relied on the automatic emergency braking system to stop the car, and because the driver is supposed to pay full attention to the road while driving, it only uses the brakes when it is 100% sure there is a problem, to avoid false alarms. So the alternative is autopilot, which assumes the driver is not paying much attention, but the downside is that you may experience more braking and false alarms. That was ridiculous.
The positive side is that the probability of you being accused of manslaughter becomes less. As you can see here, the car stopped in time. So I decided to be nice, and consider the result a draw. And I'll be nicer by using the more conservative autopilot in the rest of the tests. Here, for example, we simulate a child running out from behind a parked car, using some engineering tricks. Giving the cars less than a second to locate the child and stop. Let's go, let's speed up. There's a ball coming out. Why is that?! Oh, a child! Another life saved! Now it's Tesla's turn with autopilot. Speed 40 mph, here comes the ball. And amazingly, it stopped before the target. Great job, Tesla! This means that there's a tie as we head into round three; the fog round. Visually, I can no longer see the child through this fog. LiDAR has no problems, this will be interesting. Okay, here we go, a wall of fog.
After we broke through the fog, we encountered a sudden stop. Then we found that the mannequin was still standing; and it had an amazingly long shadow, because the laser doesn't pass through solid objects, just like you can cast a long shadow with the sun because light doesn't pass through solid objects. I don't have high hopes here. But will the child look the same after the Tesla test? Oh, oh, oh! *#@&%! It's true that this makes everything look kind of awesome; but this wasn't the only surprise. I actually hit the brakes there! It was on autopilot. And it didn't hit the brakes at all. The only thing left on him are his pants. That was bad. Now and after LiDAR scored another victory. It's time for rain. Let's see if the cars will detect the child under heavy rain. This is interesting. As you can see here, the Tesla can see the child, but he disappears as soon as the rain starts. And the situation was similar in the LiDAR car where you initially get a clear picture of the child and the shadow, and when we started opening the water hose, - You see the water coming in here. LiDAR might have trouble. Okay, let's start. When the wall of water appeared, the LiDAR didn't seem to slow down at all. Oh my god! Until the last moment. And scored another victory. Now I want the rain to stop. Do you know any dances in the rain? I can back up a bit. What a good idea. I was really amazed by the LiDAR. And now it's time to see if Tesla can do it too. Oh boy! Oh boy! And unfortunately, it couldn't. Even though I did everything I could. But we hit him!
We moved on to the penultimate round; where we brought six of the strongest lights you can buy, to simulate either sunrise or sunset, or even a truck with its bright headlights. Will these lights prevent the child from being seen? The bright light test, begins now. The LiDAR can immediately see more than I can with my eyes when the lights are on. What a bright light. But will it see the child? Come on, LiDAR. And it did it easily. It always waits until the last moment. And it amazes me every time. It's extremely bright. It's time to face the bright light. And indeed, these lights are very bright; I wouldn't have seen this child myself. I had really started to doubt that the Tesla would be able to as well. But when it stopped, - Okay, it stopped for the child, score one for Tesla. And that meant we were heading towards the painted brick wall for the final round. Scientific papers have been written about this exact scenario, to theoretically discuss what the Tesla would do. But we are here to put a definitive end to all arguments with accurate and objective data. The LiDAR system is perfect so far, while Tesla got 3 out of 5; but for me, this is the only thing that matters. Oh my god; I can't believe I'm going to do this. Okay, start.
And as you can see, and although that wall looks somewhat real; our image processing in our brains is advanced enough to distinguish small visual inconsistencies. As for the LiDAR, it doesn't distinguish the image printed on the wall. And so it sees this as a wall. Which makes it the easiest test; and as I expected, - It passed it with ease. So the question now is; will the Tesla detect it and stop in front of the Roadrunner wall, which hides behind it another child contemplating the void in his last moments on earth? There's only one way to test that hypothesis. I was supposed to go but I was scared. The car may not know it's a wall; but I do. Everything in my body tells me not to drive towards the wall. Oh my god! Okay, let's start. I braced myself and increased the speed to 40 miles per hour. And as the wall got closer and closer without moving an inch, - Oh my god! - I was wondering if the Tesla would detect it in time to hit the brakes; and it turned out that... Oh my god... I can say with certainty and for the first time in history, that the Tesla's visual camera system WILL hit a fake wall, without even a slight touch of the brakes. My heart will jump out! It seems that Tesla is more like Wile E. Coyote than Roadrunner. Sorry, little one. We seem to have lost two arms and a head. I'm not sure this can be salvaged. I think I'll go back by taxi.
But that's not all. Because while LiDAR technology proved to be the best; can it achieve Mark Rober's dream and map the Space Mountain ride in a way that enables me to print a 3D model? After 30 years of waiting, I'm happy to announce for the first time, that this is the actual shape of the Space Mountain track. This is so awesome! That's me! And that's me with a little hat. Yes! I know every turn of these turns. You go up from here then down. Then come all the right turns; right, right; right. And that's exactly where they take your picture. This is crazy. 14-year-old Mark Rober would be proud now. This is it. Space Mountain has been revealed. And thanks to "Harrison's" mapping technology, you can now see what riding Space Mountain would look like with all the lights on at CrunchLabs. And the minimum height requirement to ride is still five feet. All these things are why I love being an engineer.
Engineering allows you to shape the future; save many lives, or even achieve the highest goals in life over thirty years. If you are a young person or an adult and have always wanted to make great things, but didn't know where to start, this is the beginning. It's called the CrunchLabs Hack Pack, and it's a series of fun, programmable robots, delivered to your doorstep, so we can build them together and learn step-by-step, the engineering skills needed to make what appears on my YouTube channel. And they all work without the need for programming; and because my goal is to develop your skills; you can easily modify the microcontroller of any of these robots in different ways to fully enhance their functions. There is also a community where you can share what you have built or ask questions; in addition to an AI chatbot called Mark Robot, which checks the code and helps you implement creative ideas. And you have a chance to get the platinum diploma. And if the box contains it, congratulations; because college is now free for you or someone dear to you, plus you can come here and discuss one of your ideas with me and my team for a day. So if you want to take the first step to explore or develop a hobby of making things, go to CrunchLabs.com or use the link in the video description, and we will give you a free box as a reward for your first subscription. Thanks for watching.