For Stephen and Lindsay Robinson, their wacky adventure videos started as a way to learn new skills and as a platform for personal growth.
“The very first episode, I learned how to solve a Rubik’s Cube while skydiving and people seemed to like that,” Stephen said.
After tackling 52 skills over the course of one year on his YouTube channel 52 Skillz, the 24-year-old teamed up with his director brother for the How to Learn Anything series.
The video series combined two different skills that Stephen would perform at the same time.
“I learned how to play the piano while eating the hottest pepper in the world,” he said. “I’d always wanted to learn how to play the piano and I finally did it. Then I just thought it would be funny to do it while eating the hottest pepper in the world. It was the worst. Don’t ever do it.”
Thanks to a provincial grant and prize money from a Telus Optic TV challenge, their videos had funding.
“As soon as we got a budget, I was like: ‘What’s the most action movie-like thing that we could film with this money?'” Lindsay, 30, said.
And, what’s more Hollywood blockbuster than a slow-motion car flip?
“Episode four is the hardest to explain but it’s also our favourite episode,” Stephen said. “I learned how to do the splits and then we built a full-sized remote-control car — like a Jeep Cherokee that I could control with a remote — and I did the splits while taking it off a jump.
“It doesn’t really make any sense but it’s hilarious and people love it,” he laughed.
Another episode was learning how to program a cake-baking robot. That one took them 200 hours to complete. Others were less time intensive, but a tad more risky.
“Fifth one was hitchhiking while knitting a Canadian flag,” Stephen said. “We did some ride sharing and hitchhiking down to Mount Hood in Portland, Ore. and knitted a Canadian flag along the way and knit people stuff.
“The final one is my brother and I tap dancing on the side of Mount Hood,” he said.
That challenge was epic — hours of climbing in blizzard conditions, weather too wild they couldn’t change into their tap shoes and instead had to dance in clunky winter climbing boots. Most of the adventures, this one included, take several attempts to complete.
“One of the biggest things that I try and share is the value of failure and why that’s totally OK and totally important when you’re trying to learn new things,” Stephen said.
Lindsay said so far, the response to the videos has been positive.
“Some of the feedback that I’ve got so far from people is that they just find it inspiring,” he said.
“That, with time — not that much time — but with some dedication towards practising, learning something, you can accomplish some of these things that seem crazy to pull off.”
The brothers are hoping to secure funding so they can start filming a second season. They already have some ideas for skills they’d like to co-learn, including playing a bass guitar while fishing for bass.
“My big hope for the show is that when people watch it they’re entertained, for sure, that they just have a ton of fun watching it,” Stephen said. “And that they come out of it with a rejuvenated hunger and enthusiasm for learning new things.”
WATCH: Ever solved a Rubik’s cube while skydiving? These two Edmonton brothers have! In their new series “How to Learn Anything,” Stephen and Lindsay Robinson learn two unrelated skills from scratch and combines them to do something ridiculous. They joined Kent Morrison to talk about it.
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