Original subtitles

[Mark] Which has more destructive power? Lava or acid?

To answer that question, they'll be going head-to-head

in a scientific face-off by testing each against seven objects,

including a turkey leg, an iPad, slabs of ice,

a bunch of toys, a baseball bat, a diamond,

and finally, an actual functioning car.

Oh, wow!

To do this properly, I've invited YouTube's foremost expert

when it comes to chemical reactions…

It's good to go.

[Mark] …with the buttery smooth voice of a high-school chemistry teacher…

[man 1] Oh no.

[Mark] …NileRed.

And his opponent in this matchup will be YouTube's very own lava king.

You love him much more than his neighbors do.

-[man 2] The fire was almost to the top. -[neighbor] I just walked out here.

[man 2] It was cool.

[dramatic music plays]

[Mark] Kevin, The Backyard Scientist.

But there's a catch

'cause there's no way I'm just gonna watch.

For each of the objects, I'll be testing a wild-card factor of destruction

that will be different for each object.

So for the turkey leg, my wild-card factor of destruction

may or may not be ravenous piranhas.

Then for the baseball bat, it might involve Superman X-ray vision

that can do this in two seconds.

That's pretty strong.

And the nerd trash talk commenced immediately.

-Nothing beats a volcano. -I think acid could.

Or the X factor. You don't know what I'm bringing.

And I do wanna mention, while I am no MrBeast,

winner of today's competition gets a car.

-I'm not even tricking. -Really? You can drive it?

Yeah. [laughs]

-[Mark] But before we even got started… -Is this the right place?

[Mark] …someone from our World's Largest Lemon Battery collab showed up.

Mr. William Osman.

But since he legitimately wasn't even invited,

I made him be referee.

So with the realization that I should have larger spare referee shorts on hand,

it was time to commence our showdown of destruction,

starting first with Kevin's magma getting a chance to destroy a turkey leg.

Here we go. Turkey leg versus lava.

[Mark] Oh yeah!

Yeah! [laughs]

[Kevin laughs]

Yes!

-[Kevin] Burn! -[laughter]

-He's enjoying this way too much. -[Kevin] Boom!

[laughs]

More violent than I was expecting.

Once it cooled down,

we cracked open the crucible to inspect the damage.

[all] Oh!

[Mark] While it charred the outside, it turned the rest into a perfectly-cooked…

It's fine.

[Mark] …delicious Thanksgiving turkey leg,

which I know 'cause we definitely all gave it a taste.

-Yeah, that tastes… -[William] Come on!

[Mark] Which meant it was time for acid to enter the chat.

In hindsight, this shouldn't have been surprising,

considering what our own stomach acids do to food,

but given a little bit of time, it was terrifyingly efficient.

-Guys, come here. What do you think? -[Mark] What's the clear and dark stuff?

The dark stuff is the turkey leg.

[laughter]

How do we know you didn't throw it in the bush? Let me look.

[Mark] After a fruitless search for foul play,

if I was gonna steal round one from Nigel's acid,

it would come down to my wild-card element of destruction,

which just so happened to be 50 piranhas I'd located in a New Jersey pet store

that took less than a minute to clear a drumstick down to the bone.

My plan was ruined when I went to ship the piranhas

because, apparently, in California, they're illegal to own as pets.

Fortunately, the pet store informed me that bucktooth tetras, while smaller,

with enough of 'em, would apparently do just as much damage.

-[William] Whoa! It's instant. -[Nigel] No way.

[Mark] And while there was a nibble frenzy right when I put it in,

when I raised it up, it was basically untouched,

which was embarrassing not only for me, but frankly for California.

You said at the beginning you'd eat whatever's left.

-I never said that. -[laughter]

[Mark] Which gave acid the early lead, sending us into round two with the iPad.

Kevin and his lava were hungry for a W, and that hunger only intensified

when they saw the C-tier YouTube content playing on the iPad.

-Right on my face. -Sorry, Will.

[Mark] Oh no!

-Oh! -[laughs]

-[Mark] Now he can't see if it's playing. -Oh, it's so hot!

-[Mark] Okay, that's enough. -No. More, more, more!

[Mark] The molten rocks had melted the iPad, but for the real question,

was it enough to stop the iPad from playing?

Yes. Of course. That's going to do it.

Nigel was up next,

and with more video content suitable for destruction loaded up,

he slipped the iPad into eight liters of concentrated acid.

[Nigel] The video turned off instantly. [laughs]

[Mark] It was time to see what acid could do.

-[Nigel] Oh man. -Boo!

-[Nigel] Hey, give it time, give it time! -Boo!

[Mark] Even with a full hour soaking, not much happened

besides some kind of small reaction that turned the acid some cool colors,

which makes this the perfect opportunity to debunk the idea

that there are acids that can immediately dissolve all metals.

You might say, "Hold up, Mark."

"I've seen really popular videos like this online

where the metal spoon is immediately dissolved in acid."

However, the reason he could safely dip his fingers in the acid later in the video

is because that's not acid.

It's watered-down Mountain Dew, and that spoon is made from gallium,

which simply melts in lukewarm liquid.

Certain acids can dissolve certain metals,

but it just takes several hours for chunks of metal like this.

With Nigel out of the running, it was time for the wild card.

Normally, this fires tennis balls. Today, we're firing golf balls

at, like, 200 miles an hour.

I could catch it.

I feel good on my destructive capabilities.

The real question is, how's my aim?

Pretty good as it turns out.

-[laughs] -[Nigel] Oh my…

Yeah!

Even after all this, it still had enough kinetic energy

to dent the back wall.

-Wow! -It almost split the whole thing in half.

This looks very violent. Let's see your acid do that, Nigel.

-Is this a W? -It's pretty cool.

Okay.

[Mark] This meant I was tied for first as we headed into the ice round.

-[Kevin] Are you ready? -Fire versus ice!

And lava came right out of the gate, sizzling hot.

-[Kevin] Oh, wait. -[laughter]

[Kevin] No! No!

-[Mark] Weak! Weak! -[Kevin] No!

-He didn't make it through one! -[Kevin] Look at it bubble though!

[Mark] The bubbles were pretty cool,

but other than that, Kevin was grasping at straws.

[Kevin] I made lava spaghetti.

[Mark] The ref tallied the final count as only breaking one of the 12 layers…

[shrieking and laughter]

[Mark] …noting that the final break was too little, too late,

which made it acid's turn.

Almost immediately…

Oh wow!

[Mark] …it tied lava.

-Oh, it's through! It's through. -It's through! Wow!

I'm trying to aim.

[Mark] It just kept breaking through each layer

as the acid mixed with the water,

creating an exothermic reaction that bored a hole like a laser.

-One more! One more! -One more! Why am I rooting for you?

[Mark] Ultimately, Nigel's acid made it through every last sheet of ice,

which meant my wild card would have to do the same and do it faster.

Gentlemen, my approach here is a little bit more Kevin than Nigel.

-Whoa! -[Mark laughs]

[Mark yells]

-I feel like that did nothing. -You're making water.

All right. A good engineer always has a backup plan.

[Kevin] Oh!

[Mark] As a delivery of potential energy from the Acme Corporation…

[Kevin] Oh!

[Mark] …not only finished off my ice

but also took care of Nigel's.

-[Nigel] He killed mine too. -Technical foul.

-No, that was a regular foul. -What?

But with further evidence of referee bias…

-Flamethrower. Not flamethrower and anvil. -You're ruining everything.

[Mark] …the win went to Nigel, which put acid in first place,

headed to the toy city.

And this one for sure had Toy Story vibes going on…

[Kevin] Three, two, one.

[Mark] Whoa!

…which definitely makes Kevin Backyard Sid.

-[Kevin] Whoa, it's going for the school! -[Mark] Oh no! For the school.

Whoa! Whoa!

-[Kevin] Oh no, Stretch! -[Mark] Stretch!

I eventually swooped in to save the townspeople.

I got it!

I'm a hero!

But arguably it was…

-[Kevin] Oh, Stretch! -[Mark] Ah.

-…too little, too late. -[William] I don't think he'll make it.

[Mark] With an identical set of toys ready,

it was more bad news for the action figures…

-[Nigel] Start with sulfuric. -[Mark] Sulfuric?

…as the forecast called for acid rain.

-[Nigel] Oh! What? -[Kevin] Okay.

He has red hair now.

[Mark] After a combination of several acids, the townspeople

were mildly inconvenienced at best.

[Kevin] Stretch's hair is back to yellow.

[Mark] The lack of reaction with the plastic toys makes sense in hindsight.

Polymers have stable chemical structures, so acid can't break them down,

which is not only the reason it takes them so long to degrade in a landfill,

but it's also why most acids are, therefore, stored in plastic containers.

In contrast to that lame result, it was time for the Mark Rober wild card…

-[chuckling] -Yeah.

[Mark] …in the form of a two-ton steamroller.

[slow-motion speech]

[rock music plays]

[music stops]

[laughter]

-[William] Yeah! -[Kevin] Yes!

[Mark] This makes a great time to mention

that if you haven't been to CrunchLabs yet,

you can now visit CrunchLabs for free in Roblox, but it's way cooler than that.

The game's called Build a Rocket VS Mark Rober,

where you build fully customizable rockets with your friends

and use your engineering skills

to help me defeat the evil Fat Tail and rescue my squirrel friends.

We've been secretly working on this for over a year,

and I know people are gonna get mad

and say I'm just doing this as a trick to teach you science.

And to that I say, "How dare you?"

I'm just trying to make a really fun free game,

and if you happen to learn about projectile motion and Newton's second law,

that's not my fault.

And anyone who passes the game with the help of Phat Gus

before the end of the year can enter for a chance to win a ticket

to come out to CrunchLabs in real life for a day.

We'll make a real-life version of the rocket you design.

So visit CrunchLabs.com/Roblox with a parent to learn how you can enter,

then go play Build a Rocket on Roblox for free

so you can learn stuff.

I mean, just have fun building rockets with your friends.

Now, where were we?

-[laughter] -Oh no!

[rock music plays]

No!

This is very unsportsmanlike.

[music stops]

[Kevin laughs]

-[William] No! -[Nigel] Oh no!

Yeah!

I basically just pushed the stuff around, but it still felt cool.

[William] One Mark Rober versus three Buzz Lightyears.

Who'd have thought the Buzz Lightyears would win?

This goes to Kevin.

[Mark] This is the bat challenge. Choose wood or metal.

Definitely, I think, metal. [chuckles]

-[Kevin] Oh, wow. -That made a sound.

[Mark] Kevin's lava quickly melted away the top half of the bat,

as he topped things off…

That's a nice layer, Kevin.

…with a gratuitous flourish.

So it was up to Nigel's acid to top that.

[William] This time, you got it, Nigel.

[Mark] Yeah.

At this point, it's me, and I'm gonna go with the wood bat

'cause my contraption just happens to be

a 2,000-watt laser.

Which you may recognize 'cause this is Kevin's laser.

It's true, and it's also how he knew a fact that I didn't.

You shouldn't have chose wood.

[Mark] This 2,000-watt laser is actually terrifyingly effective

against metallic objects.

So we ran a test.

[dramatic music plays]

Wow!

Clearly, I need to swap for the metal bat.

Judge, can I--

-No. -[Mark] Now you see why he wasn't invited.

Regardless, I pressed onward.

All right.

Oh my goodness.

That's pretty strong. Here I go.

And this was honestly the closest thing to a real-life lightsaber

I've ever experienced.

Oh my God, he's two-thirds through, I think.

[William] Oh!

Heck yeah, baby!

Look at that. Pure destruction.

I think that that is really cool, and Kevin's laser did it.

[laughter]

[Mark] With that questionable ruling, if I didn't win the diamond round,

I couldn't outright win this competition, even with the finale worth two points.

1.2 carats right here.

-I do? -I don't.

-[Mark] Kevin kicked things off… -[Kevin] Ready?

[Mark] …as we completely encased the diamond in sort of a lava sandwich.

Wow.

And after it cooled off and we chiseled away the actual obsidian…

Nothing for lava.

…the diamond was perfectly intact.

1.2-carat diamond versus acid.

[dramatic music plays]

-[music stops] -Yeah.

-It's working. -[both laugh]

[Mark] Classic acid.

Time for the wild card to kick it old school

and get back to basics.

I'm gonna smash the crud outta this. Just to reclaim my honor with the W,

heading into the final challenge,

in three, two, one.

-I missed. -[laughter]

-Did you miss again, Mark? -No!

Are you kidding me?

That round's a wash.

You have two points. You have two points.

You have no points 'cause nobody invited you.

And I've got one.

Which set up the perfect finale showdown

where we each brought our own junkyard car.

-Where's Mark? -Where is Mark?

[upbeat country music plays]

That's probably Mark.

Yee-ha-ha-ha-ha!

-Yeah! -[Kevin] Oh!

He hit my car!

Dude, why'd you park so close? [laughs]

You only know how to drive a Mars rover.

[Mark] The rules were simple.

Whoever could disable their car fastest would get two points and win it all.

Starting with Nigel, who was pulling out all the stops.

I have a propane burner here

with a nice big beaker loaded with hydrochloric acid.

I'm gonna start adding nitric acid.

This will make the same mixture that can dissolve gold. Aqua regia.

Start the engine. We'll get this aqua regia nice and hot.

It'll start tearing all the metal apart. To trigger it, I have something special.

[Mark] To pour the acid from a safe distance, he had a clever solution.

But before he could get to that, we were rudely interrupted.

Wow, more uninvited science YouTubers. Estefannie and Allen.

Since they were already here, I put 'em to work

with more questionably-sized referee uniforms.

After which, Nigel was up.

When acid comes in contact with the metal,

it rips away the metal atoms like a magnet.

We call this corrosion.

You can increase the corrosive destructive power

by either, one, increasing the concentration of the acid,

meaning more magnets,

or two, you heat it up.

If a liquid's hot, the molecules are moving around way more,

so you increase the chance an acid molecule

will make contact with the metal and attract away an atom.

In this case, as a last-ditch effort, Nigel did both.

Now he just had to shatter the beaker.

[suspenseful classical music plays]

[music stops]

-Nigel! -This was your plan?

Why does it just make holes?

-[Nigel] I like the slow release. -[Mark] There it goes!

-That is terrifying. -That is…

[Mark] I've never seen a gas that color before.

Now for the verdict.

It… It's still running.

[Mark] Still running! [laughs]

Honda makes a good car.

And as Nigel released his frustrations…

-Oh! -[William] Do you feel better, Nigel?

[Mark] …I prepared to release the final mega wild card

in the form of a 50-ton excavator.

And as I figure out the controls…

Oh!

I got it.

…I want to remind the viewer

the purpose of this video was to use tools of scientific inquiry

for the noble cause

of furthering our understanding of interactions in the natural world.

Not just to live out my lifelong dream of operating a 50-ton excavator.

-Arm tank! Arm tank! Arm tank! -[exclaims]

-[Mark laughs] -Oh!

[Mark] Oh, yeah! Stay down! Yes!

[rock music plays]

-Oh no! -[car horn honks]

Put it out of its misery, Mark.

[Mark] Yeah!

Woo!

Yeah! [laughs]

[music stops]

-[all] Yeah! -Oh!

[Mark] And with my finishing move…

-[Allen] Ooh, there you go! -That was pretty good.

I am very precariously balanced.

…while the horn was still working, the engine was definitely not,

and I returned to receive the praise from my contemporaries.

-The machine was impressive. -[laughter]

-All right. -Lava.

[Mark] So for the grand finale, lava.

[suspenseful music plays]

[all] Oh!

[Mark] With the lava poured, time for Kevin's escape.

[Kevin] Agh!

[Mark] Oh, it's stopped already. No!

-[Kevin] As soon as I poured it on. -[Mark] Serious?

-All it took was four gallons of lava. -[laughter]

Oh, something's happening!

Oh wow!

Luckily, we had fire extinguishers on hand…

-[music stops] -…that basically did nothing.

-[laughs] -[high-pitched tone]

[Mark] The judges just had to confer amongst themselves…

Don't make me regret having invited any of you in the first place.

-…and deliver the verdict. -Okay, so…

-Kevin, your car stopped in four seconds. -Nigel's car still runs perfectly.

-Still running. -It could stop at any moment.

-And Mark? -How long?

Like, ten minutes to even get on the thing.

You counted from when I start moving?

Which honestly feels like a technicality, but I'm nothing…

-Kevin! -Kevin!

[Mark] …if not a gracious loser.

As a reward for a fight well fought,

I gave Kevin the indestructible 1.2-carat diamond.

Congratulations.

Now go drive off in your cars.

You're welcome. I'm basically Oprah.

Given that we've been secretly working on this Roblox game for over a year,

I'm super stoked to show you, in an exclusive world premiere,

the official game trailer.

Build a Rocket. The sky's not the limit. It's just the beginning.

I'm Mark Rober, and my new game, Build a Rocket, is your key

to a super cool space adventure.

Build rockets at CrunchLabs, journey to distant planets,

mine for valuable resources, then build even cooler mega-rockets

to explore the furthest corners of the universe.

You can build with your friends,

customize your rocket with unlimited combinations,

navigate treacherous space environments,

then use your mad engineering skills to defeat the evil rat Fat Tail

to get my squirrel friends back.

Building your first rocket's easy, but if you wanna master the game,

you need to think like an engineer

and balance your rocket's mass, thrusters, fuel supply, and navigation capabilities.

As you explore each planet, you'll find unique challenges and rewards.

Will you dig deep into the alien soil of the Martian surface

or make discoveries on uncharted planets

like Twistopia or Balloonanza or Marshmallia?

That's totally up to you.

In between missions, hang out with your friends at CrunchLabs.

You might spot some Easter eggs,

including hints at whatever my next video will be.

And CrunchLabs is a real place.

It's where I come up with the ideas and builds for all my videos.

Anyone who beats the game this year has a chance to win a platinum ticket

to come to CrunchLabs in real life for a day,

where we'll build an actual version of the rocket you designed in the game.

Visit CrunchLabs.com/Roblox with a parent to learn how to enter

or you can just play Build a Rocket for free on Roblox.

I'll be there playing myself a bunch,

and I can't wait to see the super clever ideas

that you come up with. Thanks for watching.