[aerophilic]

My kids have loved watching Mark Robers videos, have the subscriptions (one of both the backpack and crunchpack), and we uploaded our video for SatGus.

If you have young kids (6-15) these are perfect educational tools. Highly recommend. Only downside is some of them are a bit “mischievous”. For example a “Bobbie trap” that launches balls at whomever tripped the wire. Good times…

[Aurornis]

We just started watching Mark Rober videos. I started with some random old videos and they were great. Nice educational content in the middle of an entertaining video.

Then the algorithm handed us some more recent videos and they felt like a pivot to Nickelodeon style content: We watched Mark Rober run through a green slime obstacle course with a lot of loud noises and action, but basically zero educational value.

So as someone new to this: Any tips? Should I be sticking to old videos only if I want some educational value? My kids only watch with me as an activity we do together, so I’m always looking for good videos that can keep us away from the content farm stuff.

[hlfshell]

He's gone all in on the Crunch Labs brand, which is kind of built around the younger audience. This isn't a bad thing, but it does mean that older edutainment enjoyers kind of age out of his stuff. Not to say there's no value in them, but there will be more of an entertainment focus than prior edutainment focused videos.

I recommend checking out Stuff Made Here; great build videos of engineering principles in an entertaining fashion to show building cool complicated stuff.

Xyla Foxlin, a wonderful maker, also posts educational videos between her projects, like an in-depth look at how plane wings work.

[matthewmueller]

The first squirrel video might be the best youtube video ever. Surprising, entertaining, informative, accessible. I'd start there!

[bradfa]

The best ones seem to be the year or two just before the launch of Crunch Labs. Decent educational content, lots of excitement for engineering and science, and no real shilling. Lots of the newer stuff feels like it was created or edited by the Mr Beast team.

Some of Mark’s cameos on other channels since Crunch Labs started have been good, though.

[Sander_Marechal]

Take a look at the "Maker Secret Santa" series of video's. It's a yearly collaborative series between a bunch of different maker channels. It can give you a great idea as to what makers you'd like to follow.

[madhacker]

Reminds a bit of Mr Beast

[shemtay]

i had the same experience. my solution was to configure youtube kids to only show my whitelist of mannually approved videos.

[schmichael]

Same! Mark Rober is what changed my mind about YouTube for kids. He's a wildly popular creator that's even shilling a product and yet... I'm ok with all of it? He seems to very legitimately care about sharing getting kids excited about STEM, and if he gets rich doing it: great! The product is less offensive than the sugary cereal I watched commercials for while watching Saturday morning cartoons as a kid. Definitely one of the few YouTube channels I let my kids watch unattended.

[hlfshell]

There's shilling a product because someone handed you a bag, and then there's building a product you believe in. You feel okay with it because it's clearly the latter versus another NordVPN commercial. Even if the product ends up failing (and I am under no predilection to believe this will) he has presented nothing but honest enthusiasm towards his goal that you can't help but root for it.