Grant Imahara

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.

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

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.

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

Baby Yoda is universally cute, hands down.

There are plenty of myths out there that are either really expensive to do or incredibly difficult or complicated to execute.

I liked the challenge of designing and building things, figuring out how something works and how to make it better or apply it in a different way.

When I was a kid, I never wanted to be James Bond. I wanted to be Q, because he was the guy who made all the gadgets. I guess you could say that engineering came naturally.

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

Even when I was young, I would build things with Lego or make 'robots' out of cereal boxes - long before I learned metalwork. The desire to build was always there.

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 hope people can envision a future where we as humans have robots that are alongside us, assisting in our daily lives.

I only learned what an engineer was from a college guidance counselor. When she described it, a light clicked on in my head, and I said, 'Yes, that's what I want to do.'

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

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.

When I used to work in special effects at the model shop, I couldn't imagine having a better job. We made spaceships and miniature cities and I was working on robots. Then the 'MythBusters' opportunity came along.

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

Unfortunately, making what is essentially a laser sword falls into the deadly category.

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

On 'MythBusters,' a lot of what we do does not fall into any category of things we have ever done before. There's a lot of problem solving to figure out how to even approach a given problem. A background in science or engineering helps a lot.

I always wanted to have a technical career that was also creative. I have been extremely lucky in that sense to be able to combine those two things.

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