This is Matt Prater. He's the place kicker for the Detroit Lions. He holds the NFL record for the longest field goal ever, which means he's really good at kicking footballs. And this is a robot I made, which, not to brag, is also really good at kicking footballs. So to settle who's better between the two of us, we're going straight to Detroit. Mano a mano, man versus machine. But to do that, I'm gonna need an eight-second travel montage. I arrived an hour before him to get the full NFL experience and so I could soak up the fact that I had an entire stadium just to myself in the most professional way possible. We just got word Matt is about 10 minutes out. He thinks he's coming here just to teach me all about like the kicking mechanics and the science behind kicking field goals, which is partially true, I am curious. But the real reason I'm here is I built a machine that could kick really far field goals. I think it could kick it farther than any human. But if I'm really going to test that hypothesis, I need to be kicking against the one human that can kick field goals the farthest. And that happens to be Matt Prater. Originally, a guy named Tom Dempsey, who had a unique kicking foot, held the record with a 63-yard field goal, and no one could beat that for 43 years. But then Prater came along and beat his record by one yard with a 64-yard field goal in 2013. Good. History is made. And he still holds the record nearly a decade later. There he is. And not only did Matt show up, but to my absolute delight, he brought along his personal trainer. Who's this? This is Pax. What up, Pax? How are you, buddy? And so after I joined him for his standard warm-up and stretch routine, I went straight for the jugular. So, do you practice just as much as everyone else on the team? I definitely don't practice as much as everyone else. Everyone on your team is watching this like, oh, you punk. Nobody wants to be the kicker until it's the end of a game and you need a field goal. Then I asked him how to kick really long field goals, and he said it all comes down to just two things. Leg speed. Leg speed. First. And leg speed makes intuitive sense, but then he told me the second critical factor is making contact 2.2 inches up from the bottom of the ball. Extensive research has been done that backs up these two factors as the most critical for maximizing distance. So after that, he showed me the proper technique to achieve those two factors. So you come in an angle, so your plant leg should be as close to straight as you can, and at this angle, so your kicking leg can be straight. So right when you're making contact with the ball, your kicking leg should be locking right at contact. I see. And where do you hit the ball? So you'll hit the ball, you know, the little bone right in the middle of your foot. Yeah, like right here. Right, right there. This will be the first time in my life I've legitimately attempted to kick a field goal. But after Matt's coaching, he made it seem like it was pretty similar to playing soccer. And I like to play soccer. You shouldn't have done this, but you taught me everything you know. So, I say we have a competition, me versus you. I thought of a wager we could have. That Gatorade thing, it's got ice water in it. The loser gets dunked. All right. You okay with that? Yeah. Yep. That works. You seem pretty confident. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. Look at this guy, saying, Megan. So with that, we were ready to go, and this was his first kick, which he lined up left-footed, which didn't bode well for me. Ah. Yeah. Cuz he's not left-footed. This is a disaster. And then it was my turn. All right, Rober. Nope. Laces out, Dan. Gotta remember everything you taught me. Yep. I like that. Nailed it. Nice. Moving back five. This is a 25-yarder. They might say, Mark, what do you mean 25? You're only on the 15-yard line. And that's true, but the end zone itself is 10 yards, so you always include that with the kick distance. Got it. Good shot. All right, Prater. Let's see what you got, pal. Ignore this. Don't let this bother you. We can, we can have a full conversation. What'd you have for breakfast? Oh, goodness, that was right in the middle. Oh, that was a bad kick, but I'll take it. Got it. Got it. Okay. Oh. Crushed it. Crushed it. Got it. Easy. With room to spare. No pressure. Oh, no. That almost went over the net, man. Now that we were back to a 45-yard field goal, I was just stoked to still be in this. Was that, was that short? What? Official review. I'm on an official review. But there's something I haven't told you. I'm actually a barefoot kicker. You never saw this coming, did ya? No. That's absolutely the last thing I expected you to do. And my defense, this was a super popular kicking style in the early 80s. But with no proven advantage, no one really does it anymore. Except for me. At least the high speed looked kinda cool. And so here's Prater for the win. Oh. Oh. Oh. And just the perfect form. All right, Matt. I thought my, the barefoot was going to be my trump card, but I'll concede. As it stands, I'm getting the Gatorade bath. But while I might not be good at kicking footballs, I am good at engineering, which technically means I'm really good at kicking footballs. Let's go, baby. What is this? Okay. And stop. This. Now you come around back. Greatest kicker of our generation. Oh, no way. You're looking for Ray Finkle. Oh my gosh. And a clean pair of shorts. So now Prater knew the real reason I was here. But to truly understand what he's up against, we have to go back just about one year. Because that's when, with the help of my buddy John here, we tested our first prototype. John's really good with this kind of rugged, high-strength build, cuz he's worked in the industry doing props and special effects. And so at the end of that first day of testing, we could make a 60-yard field goal, but honestly, it was kind of just barely. We needed more power and accuracy, because it was really inconsistent. But to understand how we fixed it, first you need to know how it works. Fundamentally, we've got a hub attached to an axle here. It can freely rotate. And if you slap a kicking leg on the end, they both rotate together. Then if you put a winch on this side, connected to a wire that secures to the hub here, and then springs on this side also attached to a wire that attached to the hub in the same spot. Then when the winch pulls down, the springs stretch out as the leg is cocked back into position. Now we just need a way to fire the thing. A quick release is a hook system that easily unhooks when you pull a cord. So if we put one of those here and then pull the cord, the springs now contract, which makes the leg spin real fast. For version two of the robot, everything had to get much more rugged and compact, because we doubled the force from the springs to over a ton. And when we went out to test this time, it definitely did have more power, and our 60-yarders were looking much more promising. But because the football was making contact off to the side of the leg, it still wasn't as accurate as we wanted it. So for version three, we changed how the foot attached, which allowed us to hit the ball straight on. We also tried to determine the best foot diameter, as well as the best spot to make contact with the ball. But I still wanted even more power, which was tricky, because there was already so much force that we busted our industrial strength quick release, which is why there's a loose bolt in the frame here, which is just never something you want to see. And so for the fourth and final version, we upgraded to a much beefier quick release, and then increased our spring force to two tons. We also got clever with some mechanical advantage by making the diameter of the leg sprocket twice as small as the driving sprocket. So it rotated twice as far, but in the same amount of time, which means we doubled the speed. With a big build like this, you are only as strong as your weakest link. So this process of prototyping, failing and fixing, helps flush out all the weak links as quickly as possible until hopefully there's none left. And so a year after we first started, this fourth version finally had the kind of power and accuracy I was hoping for. Even if we were definitely pushing the physical limits in a few critical spots. For now, though, it was time to give Mr. Prater a proper introduction. So Ray Finkle is my surrogate. This is what I couldn't do even with my barefoot. We'll see if old Ray here can do better. Now, I'm not abandoning everything you taught me here. Uh-huh. Okay. Two steps over. Okay, here we go. You ready? Three, two, one. Get up! That's my boy. That's my boy. Well, that looked really easy. That looked pretty easy. I hate to tell you, Matt, but that wasn't full power. In fact, that was only one-third power. For a half-power demonstration, we went to the extra point location, where for reference, here is Prater the mere human kicking full power into the net. And then Finkle at half power, kicking it into the stands. And at this point, we'd poked the sleeping giant, because first of all, Matt suspiciously asked me to hold his next kick. And secondly, after that 50-yarder, he continued working his way down the field, despite my best efforts to even further rig the competition. Oh my gosh. And it's good. You have, you have real bad golf etiquette. I have this great idea. I arranged with my buddy Paul Nercola to get some drone racing footage of a field goal, because he's the drone racing world champion. And that would just be so dope. This footage here is from a test session we arranged to see how cool it would look. And it turns out the answer is really freaking cool. But after we got everything set up, a staff member requested we didn't fly drone inside, so you're just going to have to use your imagination as Prater bombs this 60-yarder. Oh, it's good. Which meant the next kick attempt would be farther than his NFL record. And one of the things Matt does so well is that technically, you want to launch the ball at 45 degrees to maximize the distance on a kick. More than that, and you waste your energy in height, lower than that, and it hits the ground prematurely. In real life, though, where the ball experiences drag from wind resistance, the ideal angle is closer to 40 degrees, which you could see Prater has down to a science. This is one yard past the NFL record, which this man holds. Oh, my goodness. And while Matt's taking a few attempts at this 70-yard field goal, let me just say that it's really special being in the presence of an elite athlete such as himself. Don't rule out barefoot here. You know what I mean? Oh my goodness. Oh, that was way short. These were honestly the first shots he'd missed all day from anywhere on the field. No. Oh. No, I'm done. Dude, well done. So now that Prater was unsuccessful from 70 yards, Finkle rolled over to potentially win the competition and save me from an ice bath. All right, here we go. A little bit of train horn for good luck and good measure. Now we're ready. Three, two, one. Hit it! That's my boy. So even with the terrible and inefficient launch trajectory, we'd settled the question of man versus machine. That's my boy. Finkle. The hang time, though. It's so high. I didn't think it was gonna get there. When it went straight up. I know. But since Finkle had made the trip all the way out here, we decided to keep going and try his foot next at an 84-yard field goal, which is an even 20 yards past the NFL record. But first, we wanted to try and figure out the foot speed of Finkle versus Prater. So we recorded a few kicks in slow-mo with a checkerboard background behind it. This is a trick I learned while at NASA that they've used for ages, because if you know the size of each of those squares, it allows you to watch back the clip and tell the speed of any moving object in the footage by converting grid boxes per second to miles per hour. So for example, if I film this Nerf dart in slow-mo, then I play it back and just count the squares it crosses in one second. In this case, it's 28 squares. Then we know it was traveling 28 miles per hour. And just to prove this approach works, we used a radar gun to check our answer, and it came up with the exact same speed. And so it turns out, I throw a Nerf football at 15 miles per hour, and I can do a short sprint at 12 miles per hour. There are 40 total squares, which means you can measure anything up to 40 miles per hour with one blanket. But if you get two blankets, then you can unlock the achievement to measure things up to 80 miles per hour. And if you get 16.7 million of them, you can measure the speed of light. And it's not just a speedometer. Oh. And a cozy blanket you could put on your bed. But the back is solid blue, which works great as a green screen for filming, or for video call background replacement. And a very limited quantity are available on my relatively new website markrober.com, where every single dollar of anything I sell goes right back into making builds and videos like this one. And even if you're like, I got plenty of blankets, Mark. I put all the critical square spacing info on the website, so you can construct your own grid and still have fun with the science. And so now that we knew Finkle could blast these balls at 120 miles per hour, here was his first attempt from 83 yards, although still not quite at full power, and I'll explain why in a second. Okay, a little bit of horn. Now we're ready. Three, two, one. Oh! Oh! What? Watch Finkle's head here. I'm sorry, buddy. Oh my gosh. And sure enough, it was the key that was the culprit. Keys aren't supposed to do this. Like that's bonkers. And so despite the explosive finale, I'm calling this a W. Not only did robot Ray Finkle beat the NFL record with a 70-yard kick at sea level with no wind, but he did it at 80% power in a super inefficient kick trajectory. On top of that, even though he lost a couple freaking legs in the process, he showed he's capable of bombing a 105-yard field goal into a slight headwind right off the turf with no tee. And so with all that, honestly, I was willing to let Prater off the hook. Because an argument could be made that I technically sort of cheated. But his son Pax was already way too excited about the prospect, which I thought was just fantastic. Until it turned out he got off easy by comparison. Please consider subscribing.
A man in a grey t-shirt and black shorts stands on a green football field, preparing to kick a football from a tee. He runs up and kicks the ball. The scene changes to a wider shot of a football stadium. The scene changes again to a live football game, showing Matt Prater on the field.
"This is Matt Prater. He's the place kicker for the Detroit Lions. He holds the NFL record for the longest field goal ever, which means he's really good at kicking footballs."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (1):
• preparing to kick, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — focused
The scene shows a complex robot on a football field. The robot's leg kicks a football high into the air. A man in a blue cap is seen watching the ball.
"And this is a robot I made, which, not to brag, is also really good at kicking footballs."
Setting: outdoor football field — bright, sunny
People (1):
• standing, wearing not visible and not visible, brown hair — looking up
The man in the blue cap is shown watching the football. The scene transitions to an aerial view of Detroit in winter, showing Ford Field. The scene changes to a close-up of a football being placed on a tee, with a foot nearby.
"So to settle who's better between the two of us, we're going straight to Detroit. Mano a mano, man versus machine."
Setting: Detroit — overcast
People (1):
• standing, wearing not visible and not visible, brown hair — looking up
The man in the black hoodie and maroon pants claps his hands together and smiles. He then walks out of frame. The scene changes to the man walking through an airport.
"But to do that, I'm gonna need an eight-second travel montage."
Setting: outdoor football field — bright, natural
People (1):
• standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — smiling
The man walks on a sidewalk outside Ford Field. He then walks through a tunnel with graffiti on the walls. He emerges from the tunnel onto the football field, looking around in awe. He then rides a small, motorized skateboard across the field.
"I arrived an hour before him to get the full NFL experience and so I could soak up the fact that I had an entire stadium just to myself in the most professional way possible."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, natural and artificial
People (1):
• walking, riding skateboard, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — smiling, looking around
Text: "FORD FIELD", "STONES 2020"
The man on the skateboard looks up at a large screen in the stadium, which shows a zoomed-in image of himself. He makes a peace sign with his fingers. He then juggles a football with his feet.
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (1):
• standing, juggling, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — smiling, looking up
Text: "FORD FIELD"
The camera flies through the empty blue seats of the stadium. It then flies down to the field, showing the man standing on the field, juggling a football.
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (1):
• standing, juggling, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — smiling
The man stands on the football field holding a football, talking to the camera. He gestures with his hands as he speaks.
"We just got word Matt is about 10 minutes out. He thinks he's coming here just to teach me all about like the kicking mechanics and the science behind kicking field goals, which is partially true, I am curious."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (1):
• standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — smiling, talking
The scene changes to an animated skeleton kicking a football, demonstrating mechanics. The man then continues talking to the camera, holding the football.
Setting: animated, then Ford Field — bright, artificial
People (1):
• standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — smiling, talking
Text: "Credit: Chase M. Pfeiffer"
The man talks to the camera, holding a football. The scene changes to a close-up of a man's hands adjusting a metal pole on a machine with chains and sprockets. He tightens a clamp on the machine.
"But the real reason I'm here is I built a machine that could kick really far field goals. I think it could kick it farther than any human. But if I'm really going to test that hypothesis, I need to be kicking against the one human that can kick field goals the farthest. And that happens to be Matt Prater."
Setting: Ford Field, then outdoor field — bright, artificial and natural
People (1):
• standing, then bending over, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — smiling, talking
The scene changes to a black and white photo of a football player kicking a field goal. The next shot is a close-up of his unique foot. The next shot is a color photo of the player kicking.
"Originally, a guy named Tom Dempsey, who had a unique kicking foot, held the record with a 63-yard field goal, and no one could beat that for 43 years."
Setting: football stadium — natural
People (1):
• kicking, wearing football jersey and football pants, short hair — focused
The scene changes to a live football game, showing Matt Prater preparing to kick. The next shot is an aerial view of the field, showing the kick. The next shot is a close-up of the football flying through the uprights, with fans cheering.
"But then Prater came along and beat his record by one yard with a 64-yard field goal in 2013."
Setting: football stadium — natural
People (1):
• preparing to kick, then kicking, wearing football jersey and football pants, short, brown hair — focused
Text: "MATT PRATER CAREER LONG FG: 59 YDS (TWICE)", "64 YARD FG ATTEMPT"
Matt Prater is shown celebrating with a teammate, then standing with his arms outstretched. The scene changes to a still image of Matt Prater in a blue Detroit Lions jersey, with his arms outstretched.
"Good. History is made. And he still holds the record nearly a decade later."
Setting: football stadium, then Ford Field — natural, then artificial
People (1):
• celebrating, then arms outstretched, wearing orange/blue football jersey and football pants, short, brown hair — smiling
The man in the black hoodie stands on the field, holding a football. Matt Prater and a young boy walk towards him. The man in the hoodie and Matt Prater exchange a fist bump. The man in the hoodie fist bumps the young boy. Matt Prater bends down to talk to the boy.
"There he is. And not only did Matt show up, but to my absolute delight, he brought along his personal trainer. Who's this? This is Pax. What up, Pax? How are you, buddy?"
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (3):
• standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — smiling
• walking, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — smiling (behind mask)
• walking, then standing, wearing camouflage jacket and black pants, short, brown hair — smiling (behind mask)
Matt Prater and the man in the hoodie are both on the ground stretching. They both laugh. The man in the hoodie sits up, then stands, looking determined.
"And so after I joined him for his standard warm-up and stretch routine, I went straight for the jugular."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (2):
• stretching on ground, then standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — laughing, then serious
• stretching on ground, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — laughing
The man in the black hoodie stands opposite Matt Prater, holding a football. He asks Matt a question.
"So, do you practice just as much as everyone else on the team?"
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (2):
• standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — talking, smiling
• standing, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — listening, smiling
Matt Prater laughs and shakes his head, then replies to the man in the hoodie. The man in the hoodie laughs and points at Matt Prater.
"I definitely don't practice as much as everyone else. Everyone on your team is watching this like, oh, you punk. Nobody wants to be the kicker until it's the end of a game and you need a field goal."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (2):
• standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — laughing, pointing
• standing, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — laughing, talking
The man in the black hoodie talks to the camera, holding a football. He gestures with his hands. Matt Prater then explains something to the man, gesturing with his hands. Matt Prater bends over to demonstrate placing the football. The scene changes to an animated diagram showing the optimal impact point on a football.
"Then I asked him how to kick really long field goals, and he said it all comes down to just two things. Leg speed. Leg speed. First. And leg speed makes intuitive sense, but then he told me the second critical factor is making contact 2.2 inches up from the bottom of the ball."
Setting: Ford Field, then animated — bright, artificial
People (2):
• standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — talking, listening
• standing, then bending over, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — talking, demonstrating
Text: "2.2in (5.5cm)", "Credit: Chase M. Pfeiffer"
The scene shows several animated graphs illustrating the trajectory of a football based on impact location. On the right, there are diagrams of a football with arrows pointing to different impact locations.
"Extensive research has been done that backs up these two factors as the most critical for maximizing distance."
Setting: animated — bright
Text: "Impact Location = 13 cm", "Impact Location = 10.5 cm", "Impact Location = 9 cm", "Impact Location = 5.5 cm", "Impact Location = 3 cm", "Credit: Chase M. Pfeiffer"
Matt Prater stands on the field, demonstrating kicking technique to the man in the black hoodie. He explains how the plant leg and kicking leg should be positioned. The man in the hoodie listens intently, occasionally bending down to touch his foot.
"So after that, he showed me the proper technique to achieve those two factors."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (2):
• standing, bending over, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — listening, focused
• standing, demonstrating kicking, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — talking, demonstrating
Matt Prater explains where to hit the ball, pointing to his foot. The man in the hoodie bends down to touch the middle of his foot. Matt Prater points to the football on the tee.
"And where do you hit the ball? So you'll hit the ball, you know, the little bone right in the middle of your foot. Yeah, like right here. Right, right there."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (2):
• bending over, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — listening, touching foot
• standing, then bending over, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — talking, pointing
Matt Prater demonstrates a kicking motion. The man in the hoodie attempts to kick a football from a tee, then juggles a football with his feet.
"This will be the first time in my life I've legitimately attempted to kick a field goal. But after Matt's coaching, he made it seem like it was pretty similar to playing soccer. And I like to play soccer."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (2):
• kicking, then juggling, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — focused, then smiling
• standing, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — watching
The man in the black hoodie stands opposite Matt Prater, talking to him. He proposes a competition and a wager, pointing to a red Gatorade cooler on a bench in the background. Matt Prater smiles and agrees. The man in the hoodie smiles confidently.
"You shouldn't have done this, but you taught me everything you know. So, I say we have a competition, me versus you. I thought of a wager we could have. That Gatorade thing, it's got ice water in it. The loser gets dunked. All right. You okay with that? Yeah. Yep. That works. You seem pretty confident. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. Look at this guy, saying, Megan."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (2):
• standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — smiling, talking
• standing, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — smiling, listening, then talking
Matt Prater places a football on a tee, then runs up and kicks it. The man in the hoodie watches. Matt Prater misses the goal. The man in the hoodie looks disappointed.
"So with that, we were ready to go, and this was his first kick, which he lined up left-footed, which didn't bode well for me. Ah. Yeah. Cuz he's not left-footed. This is a disaster."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (2):
• standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — watching, then disappointed
• kicking, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — focused, then disappointed
Text: "20 YARDS"
The man in the hoodie places a football on a tee. He then runs up and kicks it, making the goal. He celebrates. The camera shows a close-up of the man's face as he smiles.
"And then it was my turn. All right, Rober. Nope. Laces out, Dan. Gotta remember everything you taught me. Yep. I like that. Nailed it. Nice. Moving back five."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (2):
• kicking, then celebrating, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — focused, then smiling
• standing, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — watching, then smiling
The man in the hoodie stands on the field, talking to the camera. He explains the kick distance. The camera then shows an animated diagram of a football field, explaining how the end zone adds to the kick distance.
"This is a 25-yarder. They might say, Mark, what do you mean 25? You're only on the 15-yard line. And that's true, but the end zone itself is 10 yards, so you always include that with the kick distance."
Setting: Ford Field, then animated — bright, artificial
People (1):
• standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — talking, smiling
Text: "25 YARDS", "+10"
The man in the hoodie kicks the football, making the goal. Matt Prater walks towards him, smiling. The man in the hoodie then distracts Matt Prater as he prepares to kick, asking him about breakfast. Matt Prater kicks the ball, making the goal.
"Got it. Good shot. All right, Prater. Let's see what you got, pal. Ignore this. Don't let this bother you. We can, we can have a full conversation. What'd you have for breakfast? Oh, goodness, that was right in the middle."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (3):
• kicking, then standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — smiling, talking, distracting
• standing, then kicking, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — smiling, focused, then talking
• sitting on ground, wearing blue jersey and black pants, short, brown hair — watching
Matt Prater kicks the football. The man in the hoodie kicks the football. Both make the goal. The man in the hoodie celebrates.
"Oh, that was a bad kick, but I'll take it. Got it. Got it. Okay."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (2):
• kicking, then celebrating, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — focused, then smiling
• kicking, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — focused, then smiling
Text: "30 YARDS"
The man in the hoodie kicks the football, making the goal. He celebrates. Matt Prater kicks the football, but misses the goal. The man in the hoodie looks surprised.
"So far, I don't know, our kicks look pretty similar."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (2):
• kicking, then celebrating, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — smiling, then surprised
• kicking, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — focused, then disappointed
Text: "40 YARDS"
The man in the hoodie kicks the football. He looks disappointed as it misses the goal. He then removes his shoes, revealing he is a barefoot kicker. Matt Prater looks surprised.
"Now that we were back to a 45-yard field goal, I was just stoked to still be in this. Was that, was that short? What? Official review. I'm on an official review. But there's something I haven't told you. I'm actually a barefoot kicker. You never saw this coming, did ya? No. That's absolutely the last thing I expected you to do."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (3):
• kicking, then standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — focused, then disappointed, then mischievous
• standing, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — watching, then surprised
• sitting on ground, wearing blue jersey and black pants, short, brown hair — watching
Text: "45 YARDS"
The scene changes to a still image of a barefoot football player kicking. The next shot is another barefoot player kicking. The next shot is a black screen. The man in the hoodie is then shown preparing to kick barefoot.
"And my defense, this was a super popular kicking style in the early 80s. But with no proven advantage, no one really does it anymore. Except for me."
Setting: football stadium, then Ford Field — natural, then artificial
People (2):
• kicking, wearing football jersey and football pants, short hair — focused
• preparing to kick, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — focused
Text: "Ryan Payne", "Ricky Townsend", "Paul McFadden"
The man in the hoodie kicks the football barefoot. The camera shows a wide shot of the stadium, with the man and crew on the field. The man celebrates. The scene changes to a close-up of the man falling on the ground after kicking, then smiling.
"Except for me."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (1):
• kicking, then falling, then sitting, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — focused, then celebrating, then laughing
The scene shows an instant replay of the man kicking the football barefoot, falling to the ground. The man is then shown sitting on the ground, laughing.
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (1):
• sitting on ground, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — laughing
Text: "INSTANT REPLAY"
Matt Prater talks to the man in the hoodie, who is sitting on the ground. The young boy is also sitting on the ground, watching. The scene changes to a close-up of the man's barefoot hitting the football in slow motion.
"That's the worst sound you can hear as a kicker, too. Hitting the pole. Yeah, her crossbar. Oh, that was heart-wrenching. At least the high speed looked kinda cool."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (3):
• sitting, then kicking, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — laughing, then focused
• standing, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — talking, smiling
• sitting on ground, wearing blue jersey and black pants, short, brown hair — watching
Matt Prater kicks the football. The man in the hoodie watches. Matt Prater misses the goal. The man in the hoodie looks disappointed. The scene changes to a close-up of Matt Prater's foot hitting the football in slow motion.
"And so here's Prater for the win. Oh. Oh. Oh. And just the perfect form."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (2):
• standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — watching, then disappointed
• kicking, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — focused, then disappointed
The man in the hoodie talks to Matt Prater, conceding the competition. He then explains his engineering skills, gesturing with his hands. The young boy walks in the background. The man then makes a 'shush' gesture and winks at the camera.
"All right, Matt. I thought my, the barefoot was going to be my trump card, but I'll concede. As it stands, I'm getting the Gatorade bath. But while I might not be good at kicking footballs, I am good at engineering, which technically means I'm really good at kicking footballs."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (3):
• standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — talking, then winking
• standing, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — listening, smiling
• walking, wearing blue jersey and black pants, short, brown hair — walking
A train horn sound is heard. The man in the hoodie makes a 'shush' gesture. A robot, dressed in a football uniform, emerges from a tunnel. The man in the hoodie directs the robot to stop. He then reveals the robot to Matt Prater, who looks surprised. The young boy covers his ears. The scene changes to an aerial view of an outdoor football field.
"Let's go, baby. What is this? Okay. And stop. This. Now you come around back. Greatest kicker of our generation. Oh, no way. You're looking for Ray Finkle. Oh my gosh. And a clean pair of shorts. So now Prater knew the real reason I was here. But to truly understand what he's up against, we have to go back just about one year."
Setting: Ford Field, then outdoor field — bright, artificial and natural
People (3):
• standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — mischievous, then directing
• standing, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — surprised, then smiling
• standing, wearing blue jersey and black pants, short, brown hair — surprised, covering ears
Text: "Finkle"
The man in the hoodie and another man (John) are shown working on the robot on an outdoor football field. John is welding. The scene changes to John and Adam Savage working on a prop that emits fire.
"Because that's when, with the help of my buddy John here, we tested our first prototype. John's really good with this kind of rugged, high-strength build, cuz he's worked in the industry doing props and special effects."
Setting: outdoor football field, then workshop — bright, sunny and artificial
People (3):
• bending over, wearing green t-shirt and khaki shorts, short, brown hair — focused
• bending over, wearing plaid shirt, then black t-shirt and blue jeans, long, brown hair — focused
• standing, wearing black t-shirt with 'SAVAGE' logo and not visible, grey hair — smiling
The robot kicks a football high into the air. The scene changes to an aerial view of the football field, showing the football flying through the goalposts. The robot kicks another football. The scene changes to an animated diagram of the robot's internal mechanism, explaining how it works.
"And so at the end of that first day of testing, we could make a 60-yard field goal, but honestly, it was kind of just barely. We needed more power and accuracy, because it was really inconsistent. But to understand how we fixed it, first you need to know how it works. Fundamentally, we've got a hub attached to an axle here. It can freely rotate. And if you slap a kicking leg on the end, they both rotate together. Then if you put a winch on this side, connected to a wire that secures to the hub here, and then springs on this side also attached to a wire that attached to the hub in the same spot. Then when the winch pulls down, the springs stretch out as the leg is cocked back into position. Now we just need a way to fire the thing. A quick release is a hook system that easily unhooks when you pull a cord. So if we put one of those here and then pull the cord, the springs now contract, which makes the leg spin real fast."
Setting: outdoor football field, then animated — bright, sunny
The scene shows a close-up of the robot's chains and sprockets, then a man working on the robot. The robot kicks a football. The scene changes to an aerial view of the football field, showing the football flying through the goalposts. The robot kicks another football.
"For version two of the robot, everything had to get much more rugged and compact, because we doubled the force from the springs to over a ton. And when we went out to test this time, it definitely did have more power, and our 60-yarders were looking much more promising. But because the football was making contact off to the side of the leg, it still wasn't as accurate as we wanted it."
Setting: workshop, then outdoor football field — bright, natural
People (1):
• bending over, wearing green t-shirt and khaki shorts, short, brown hair — focused
The scene shows a close-up of the robot's foot hitting the football, then a split screen showing two different foot diameters. The robot kicks another football. The man in the hoodie walks on the field, holding a football. The scene changes to a close-up of a broken quick release on the robot.
"So for version three, we changed how the foot attached, which allowed us to hit the ball straight on. We also tried to determine the best foot diameter, as well as the best spot to make contact with the ball. But I still wanted even more power, which was tricky, because there was already so much force that we busted our industrial strength quick release, which is why there's a loose bolt in the frame here, which is just never something you want to see."
Setting: outdoor football field — bright, sunny
People (1):
• walking, wearing green t-shirt and khaki shorts, short, brown hair — focused
The scene shows an aerial view of two men working on the robot. The scene changes to a close-up of a new quick release, then new springs. The men are shown working on the robot, adjusting chains and drilling. The robot's leg is shown rotating. The men continue to work on the robot.
"And so for the fourth and final version, we upgraded to a much beefier quick release, and then increased our spring force to two tons. We also got clever with some mechanical advantage by making the diameter of the leg sprocket twice as small as the driving sprocket. So it rotated twice as far, but in the same amount of time, which means we doubled the speed. With a big build like this, you are only as strong as your weakest link. So this process of prototyping, failing and fixing, helps flush out all the weak links as quickly as possible until hopefully there's none left."
Setting: outdoor football field, then workshop — bright, sunny
People (2):
• bending over, wearing green t-shirt and khaki shorts, short, brown hair — focused
• bending over, wearing black t-shirt and blue jeans, long, brown hair — focused
The robot kicks a football high into the air. The man in the hoodie watches. The scene changes to a wide shot of the football field, showing the football flying through the goalposts. The robot kicks another football.
"And so a year after we first started, this fourth version finally had the kind of power and accuracy I was hoping for. Even if we were definitely pushing the physical limits in a few critical spots."
Setting: outdoor football field — bright, sunny
People (1):
• standing, wearing green t-shirt and khaki shorts, short, brown hair — watching
Text: "youtube.com/markrober"
The robot, dressed in a football uniform, stands on the field. The man in the hoodie talks to the camera, then to Matt Prater, introducing the robot as his surrogate. He gestures towards the robot. Matt Prater watches, smiling. A crew member adjusts the robot.
"For now, though, it was time to give Mr. Prater a proper introduction. So Ray Finkle is my surrogate. This is what I couldn't do even with my barefoot. We'll see if old Ray here can do better. Now, I'm not abandoning everything you taught me here. Uh-huh."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (3):
• standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — talking, smiling
• standing, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — smiling
• bending over, wearing black t-shirt and black pants, long, brown hair — focused
Text: "Finkle"
The man in the hoodie watches as the robot's leg cocks back. The robot kicks the football, making the goal. The man in the hoodie celebrates, then embraces the robot.
"Uh-huh."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (1):
• standing, then embracing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — focused, then celebrating
Matt Prater and the man in the hoodie talk, with Matt commenting on how easy the kick looked. The man in the hoodie then reveals that it wasn't full power. A crew member adjusts the robot.
"Well, that looked really easy. That looks pretty easy. Yeah. That was really easy. I hate to tell you, Matt, but that wasn't full power."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (3):
• standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — talking, smiling
• standing, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — talking, smiling
• bending over, wearing black t-shirt and black pants, long, brown hair — focused
The man in the hoodie talks to the camera. Matt Prater then kicks a football into a net. The robot kicks a football into the stands. The scene changes to a close-up of the man in the hoodie and Matt Prater, talking.
"In fact, that was only one-third power. For a half-power demonstration, we went to the extra point location, where for reference, here is Prater the mere human kicking full power into the net. And then Finkle at half power, kicking it into the stands."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (2):
• standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — talking, smiling
• kicking, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — focused
Text: "youtube.com/markrober"
The man in the hoodie crouches down to hold a football for Matt Prater. Matt Prater kicks the football, making the goal. The man in the hoodie looks surprised. Matt Prater continues to kick footballs, moving further down the field.
"And at this point, we'd poked the sleeping giant, because first of all, Matt suspiciously asked me to hold his next kick. And secondly, after that 50-yarder, he continued working his way down the field, despite my best efforts to even further rig the competition."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (2):
• crouching, then standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — focused, then surprised
• kicking, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — focused, then determined
Text: "50 YARDS"
Matt Prater kicks the football, making the goal. The man in the hoodie celebrates. Matt Prater smiles and walks towards him. The scene changes to a drone flying through an indoor football stadium, following a football being kicked. The drone flies through the goalposts. The scene changes to a staff member requesting no drone flying. Matt Prater then kicks a football, making the goal.
"Oh my gosh. And it's good. You have, you have real bad golf etiquette. I have this great idea. I arranged with my buddy Paul Nercola to get some drone racing footage of a field goal, because he's the drone racing world champion. And that would just be so dope. This footage here is from a test session we arranged to see how cool it would look. And it turns out the answer is really freaking cool. But after we got everything set up, a staff member requested we didn't fly drone inside, so you're just going to have to use your imagination as Prater bombs this 60-yarder."
Setting: Ford Field, then Indiana University — bright, artificial
People (2):
• standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — celebrating, then talking
• kicking, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — smiling, then focused
Text: "55 YARDS", "youtube.com/markrober"
The man in the hoodie high-fives Matt Prater. The scene changes to an animated diagram of a football field, illustrating the optimal kicking angle. The scene changes back to the man in the hoodie and Matt Prater, talking.
"Which meant the next kick attempt would be farther than his NFL record. And one of the things Matt does so well is that technically, you want to launch the ball at 45 degrees to maximize the distance on a kick. More than that, and you waste your energy in height, lower than that, and it hits the ground prematurely. In real life, though, where the ball experiences drag from wind resistance, the ideal angle is closer to 40 degrees, which you could see Prater has down to a science. This is one yard past the NFL record, which this man holds."
Setting: Ford Field, then animated — bright, artificial
People (2):
• standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — smiling, talking
• standing, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — smiling, talking
Text: "60 YARDS", "45°", "40°"
Matt Prater kicks the football. The man in the hoodie watches. Matt Prater misses the goal. The man in the hoodie looks surprised. Matt Prater continues to kick, missing several times. The man in the hoodie looks disappointed.
"Oh, my goodness. And while Matt's taking a few attempts at this 70-yard field goal, let me just say that it's really special being in the presence of an elite athlete such as himself. Don't rule out barefoot here. You know what I mean? Oh my goodness. Oh, that was way short. These were honestly the first shots he'd missed all day from anywhere on the field. No. Oh. No, I'm done."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (2):
• standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — watching, then surprised, then disappointed
• kicking, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — focused, then disappointed
Text: "65 YARDS", "70 YARDS"
The scene shows an animated scoreboard, with Matt Prater having missed a 70-yard field goal. The robot, Finkle, is shown preparing to kick. The man in the hoodie gives Finkle a pep talk. Finkle kicks the football. The scene changes to a slow-motion replay of Finkle's leg kicking the football, with its head flopping back. The man in the hoodie looks shocked.
"Dude, well done. So now that Prater was unsuccessful from 70 yards, Finkle rolled over to potentially win the competition and save me from an ice bath. All right, here we go. A little bit of train horn for good luck and good measure. Now we're ready. Three, two, one. Oh! Oh! What? Watch Finkle's head here. I'm sorry, buddy. Oh my gosh."
Setting: animated, then Ford Field — bright, artificial
People (2):
• standing, then crouching, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — focused, then shocked
• standing, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — smiling
Text: "70 YARDS"
The man in the hoodie celebrates, jumping up and down, then embraces the robot. He then points to the robot's head, which is flopping back and forth. Matt Prater and the young boy watch, smiling. The man in the hoodie continues to celebrate.
"And so even with the terrible and inefficient launch trajectory, we'd settled the question of man versus machine. That's my boy. That's my boy. Finkle. The hang time, though. It's so high. I didn't think it was gonna get there. It went straight up."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (3):
• jumping, embracing, pointing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — celebrating, joyful
• standing, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — smiling
• standing, wearing blue jersey and black pants, short, brown hair — smiling
The man in the hoodie talks to the camera, explaining the next challenge. The scene changes to a slow-motion replay of Finkle's foot kicking the football, with a checkerboard background. The scene changes to a still image of a NASA facility with a checkerboard background. The scene changes to a slow-motion replay of Finkle's foot kicking the football. The scene changes to an animated graph comparing foot speeds. The scene changes to a still image of a football player kicking. The scene changes to a slow-motion replay of Finkle's foot kicking the football. The scene changes to an animated graph comparing ball speeds.
"But since Finkle had made the trip all the way out here, we decided to keep going and try his foot next at an 84-yard field goal, which is an even 20 yards past the NFL record. But first, we wanted to try and figure out the foot speed of Finkle versus Prater. So we recorded a few kicks in slow-mo with a checkerboard background behind it. This is a trick I learned while at NASA that they've used for ages, because if you know the size of each of those squares, it allows you to watch back the clip and tell the speed of any moving object in the footage by converting grid boxes per second to miles per hour. So when you do this, you find Matt's foot is moving at an insane 48 miles per hour, which puts him right up with the elite placekickers and soccer players. The robot's foot, however, is traveling more than 30 miles an hour faster at a blazing 82 miles per hour. We also measured the ball speed after contact, and while Prater is at 80 miles per hour, which is again, insanely fast, the robot clocks in at 120 miles per hour."
Setting: Ford Field, then NASA, then animated — bright, artificial
People (1):
• standing, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — talking, focused
Text: "FOOT SPEED", "48mph (77 km/h)", "82mph (132 km/h)", "BALL SPEED (AFTER CONTACT)", "80mph (129 km/h)", "120mph (193 km/h)"
The man in the hoodie talks to the camera, holding a blue blanket. He unfolds the blanket to reveal a checkerboard pattern. He explains how to use the blanket to measure speed, demonstrating with a Nerf dart and a radar gun. He then throws a Nerf football and sprints, measuring his speed. He shows how two blankets can measure up to 80 mph, and 16.7 million blankets can measure the speed of light. He then uses the blanket as a green screen and a cozy bedspread. He promotes his website, markrober.com, showing various merchandise.
"And that checkerboard speed trick is so cool that I invented this. I call it the 40 mile an hour blanket. Because it's a real soft, functional blanket on one side, but the other side has these squares that are sized just right, so that if you film in slow-mo on your phone, the math works out perfectly so that you just count how many squares it travels in exactly one slow-mo second, and that's how fast it's moving in miles per hour. So for example, if I film this Nerf dart in slow-mo, then I play it back and just count the squares it crosses in one second, in this case, it's 28 squares. Then we know it was traveling 28 miles per hour. And just to prove this approach works, we used a radar gun to check our answer, and it came up with the exact same speed. And so it turns out, I throw a Nerf football at 15 miles per hour, and I can do a short sprint at 12 miles per hour. There are 40 total squares, which means you could measure anything up to 40 miles per hour with one blanket. But if you get two blankets, then you can unlock the achievement to measure things up to 80 miles per hour. And if you get 16.7 million of them, you can measure the speed of light. And it's not just a speedometer. Oh. And a cozy blanket you could put on your bed. But the back is solid blue, which works great as a green screen for filming, or for video call background replacement. And a very limited quantity are available on my relatively new website markrober.com, where every single dollar of anything I sell goes right back into making builds and videos like this one. And even if you're like, I got plenty of blankets, Mark. I put all the critical square spacing info on the website, so you can construct your own grid and still have fun with the science."
Setting: suburban backyard, then bedroom — bright, sunny
People (1):
• standing, demonstrating, wearing blue jacket over black t-shirt and grey pants, short, brown hair — talking, smiling
Text: "40MPH SPEED SQUARE BLANKET", "MARK ROBER", "40MPH SPEED SQUARE BLANKET", "MARK ROBER", "NEW LOGO - NEW STORE - SAME SCIENCE", "TEES", "FLEECE", "ACCESSORIES", "SHOP NOW", "NEW GEAR", "LOGO TEE - GREY $25.00", "PHAT GUS TEE $25.00", "ROCKET CLUB TEE $25.00", "GLITTER BOMB WIREFRAME TEE $25.00"
The man in the hoodie talks to the camera. The robot, Finkle, is shown preparing to kick. The man in the hoodie gives Finkle a pep talk. Finkle kicks the football. The scene changes to a slow-motion replay of Finkle's leg kicking the football, with its head flopping back. The man in the hoodie looks shocked.
"And so now that we knew Finkle could blast these balls at 120 miles per hour, here was his first attempt from 83 yards, although still not quite at full power, and I'll explain why in a second. Okay, a little bit of horn. Now we're ready. Three, two, one. Oh! Oh! What? Watch Finkle's head here. I'm sorry, buddy. Oh my gosh."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (1):
• standing, then crouching, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — focused, then shocked
The scene changes to a slow-motion replay of Finkle's leg kicking the football, showing the ball deforming under impact. The scene changes to a close-up of a man's hands squeezing a football, showing its firmness.
"And when you see this, these balls were no Deflategate Brady specials. These were the most inflated footballs I'd ever handled. You could barely dent them in with your hand. It's just the pressure from the robot foot was that high."
Setting: Ford Field, then workshop — artificial
People (1):
• squeezing, wearing not visible and not visible, not visible hair — not visible
Finkle kicks the football high into the air. The man in the hoodie watches. The scene changes to an aerial view of the football field, showing the football flying through the goalposts. The scene changes to a close-up of Finkle's leg kicking the football, with the leg breaking off. The man in the hoodie looks shocked. He then picks up a broken part of the robot, explaining the failure. The scene changes to an animated diagram of the robot's internal mechanism, explaining the key shaft.
"Go! The first kick had the worst possible trajectory, and so the hang time was hilarious. So then just for fun, we opened it up and sent all two tons of spring force through the machine and into the ball, which is when this happened. We're just going absolutely full, all of the power. Oh my gosh. If you watch that clip back, the ball landed here, but it had the height to clear the uprights right here. You'll notice that's right above this unique pattern in the cement. And from the satellite view, that unique pattern is right here. Now we were kicking from the 50-yard line. So the question is, what is that distance? Well, if we borrow this convenient 100-yard measuring stick, then that kick would have gone through the uprights with no tee and a slight headwind from 105 yards away. Now this is a bit of a good news, bad news situation, because on one hand, the ability to max out the robot and kick 105-yard field goals is amazing. But on the other hand, on the very next kick, this happened. The leg just fell off. We're pretty done for today. Basically, we sheared the key in the key shaft, because of the whole two tons of spring force thing. In case you're unfamiliar, this is the key. It's just a chunk of metal that gets wedged in here, so that when the key shaft turns, the sprocket turns with it. So the final improvement would have been to swap the key shaft with a spline shaft, because those distribute the load evenly among many services as opposed to just one. Unfortunately, those spline shafts had a two-week lead time, and we were flying to Detroit a few days after this."
Setting: Ford Field, then outdoor football field, then animated — bright, artificial and natural
People (1):
• standing, then bending over, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — shocked, then talking
The man in the hoodie talks to the camera, then to Finkle, giving a pep talk. Finkle kicks the football, and its leg breaks off. The man in the hoodie looks shocked, then picks up the broken key. He then talks to the camera, celebrating Finkle's achievement. Matt Prater's son, Pax, dumps a bucket of water on Matt Prater. A crew member then dumps a large Gatorade cooler on Matt Prater. The scene ends with a black screen with text.
"Ray Finkle, from 83 yards, full power plus a little more. Three, two, one. Oh! Oh! What? Watch Finkle's head here. I'm sorry, buddy. Oh my gosh. And sure enough, it was the key that was the culprit. Keys aren't supposed to do this. Like that's bonkers. And so despite the explosive finale, I'm calling this a W. Not only did robot Ray Finkle beat the NFL record with a 70-yard kick at sea level with no wind, but he did it at 80% power in a super inefficient kick trajectory. On top of that, even though he lost a couple freaking legs in the process, he showed he's capable of bombing a 105-yard field goal into a slight headwind right off the turf with no tee. And so with all that, honestly, I was willing to let Prater off the hook. Because an argument could be made that I technically sort of cheated. But his son Pax was already way too excited about the prospect, which I thought was just fantastic. Until it turned out he got off easy by comparison. Please consider subscribing."
Setting: Ford Field, Detroit — bright, artificial
People (3):
• standing, then crouching, wearing black hoodie with white logo and maroon pants, short, brown hair — focused, then shocked, then celebrating
• standing, then sitting, wearing grey t-shirt with 'DETROIT LIONS' logo and black shorts, short, brown hair — smiling, then getting drenched
• standing on bench, wearing blue jersey and black pants, short, brown hair — excited
Text: "please consider subscribing"