Grant Imahara

“Engineers are great at many things. They're not necessarily great at recognizing basic human psychology.”

“In the '60s astronauts were rockstars. Everyone wanted to be an astronaut.”

“'MythBusters' sounded like such an incredible opportunity. Where else might I be paid to make robots blow things up?”

“When you think about exploring deep space, it's very dangerous for humans. To potentially sacrifice human life is a delicate proposition. On the flip side, if you want to send a robot to another planet for an extended period of time and at some point you know it'll cease to function, it's not considered a tragedy.”

“Any sport that turns a squash into a lethal projectile is safest watched from the comfort of your couch.”

“After the third episode of 'The Mandalorian,' I knew I had to make my own Baby Yoda.”

“Augmented and virtual reality technologies are the future of smart construction and we are just starting to see the possibilities.”

“I wasn't in the AV club. I was the AV club.”

“Human communication above and beyond the words that we say is so nuanced. It makes it difficult to not only analyze the vocabulary you use but the intention behind it. That's something even humans have difficulty doing, let alone a robot.”

“Technology has always been a catalyst for change, such as the invention of the airplane or the Internet.”

“In special effects, you can cheat to make it look good. In real science, you have to have results.”

“I think it's something you're born with - the desire to know how things work inside.”

“When I started Battle Bots in 1999, the guy sitting next to me was a high school teacher with no robotics experience at all. There were special effects guys, engineers, software guys who just wrote code - all kinds of people who had a desire to build something. And they would do it in their garages or even their kitchens.”

“I never really wanted to be, I don't want to say, an average engineer. I always wanted to do something different, something more exciting.”

“The general public perception is that fighting robots were popular, and then went away for a long time, but in reality, there have been live robot combat events happening continuously since 1994. And all the while, the robots have been getting better and meaner and tougher.”

“I worked at ILM the same time Masi Oka was there. Who would have thought that two Asian-American nerds from ILM would be on hit shows?”

“First career I had right out of engineering school was at Lucas film, not working in the movies but working in home theater.”

“People always ask why I would leave ILM, and it's because 'Mythbusters' sounded like fun.”

“As far as animatronics, I started out in college working for Tom Holman. He was the inventor of the THX sound system. Through him, I got an internship at Lucasfilm.”

“I was one of those kids that would take apart the remote control and take all the wheels off my little toy cars.”