Back when I was in high school, a bunch of guys I knew went through a phase of seeing how much they could steal from the store in our lunch break without getting caught. It only took around a month before it escalated from sleeving a few bars of chocolate to synchronized and well planned raids involving small teams where they essentially emulated a street pickpocket gang. One guy had to spend money to distract the cashier, one guy was the mule who opened his backpack slightly so that the third guy could shove stuff into it with one hand while pretending to reach for other items. This went well for a while but the shop owner was obviously clued into what must have been over $150 worth of stock going missing every week and just as strategic as the young thieves ambushed the ringleader as he made his way out of the shop. Essentially, he was clotheslined across the counter by a fast approaching Pakistani wrecking ball of a man and held down until police arrived. Just because this was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life, doesn’t mean I condone either of their actions. The shoplifting gig was pretty sophisticated, but illegal and the use of force was hilariously over the top but also an understandably visceral reaction.
While I’m sure the UK has its fair share of great inventors at the moment, influenced by this memory I am currently in awe of the lengths this French man has gone to in order to steal cans of soda from a vending machine. Check out the video below where a dude with the YouTube username ioduremetallique demonstrates his robotic vending machine thievery machine which is controlled by a video game controller. It’s also an interesting way to practice your high school French since there is not one drop of English in this video.
This may just look like invention for the sake of it, with no practical application, but how many times have you stuck your money in, only to see your item get stuck on its way out and thought “damn, I wish I had a robotic arm designed for lifting items from a vending machine so I could grab that bag of chips”? Exactly.
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