Kickin' Bot

Grant Imahara is an animatronics engineer and modelmaker for George Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic in Marin County, California. He specializes in electronics and radio control at the ILM Model Shop, and has credits on numerous movies, including Jurassic Park: The Lost World, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, Galaxy Quest, AI: Artificial Intelligence, Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, and most recently, Matrix: Reloaded and Revolutions. He has installed electronics in R2-D2 units for Star Wars Episodes I and II, replacing the halogen light source and rotating color wheel (for the sparkly lights) with a custom microcontroller-based LED circuit that was originally created to make the pulsating lights for the main engines of the Protector, from Galaxy Quest. He also upgraded all of the radio equipment and speed controls to modern standards. Along with R2-D2 Crew Chief Don Bies and Nelson Hall, he is one of only three official R2-D2 operators in the United States. Grant developed a custom circuit to cycle the Energizer Bunny's arm beats and ears at a constant rate. He performed all electronics installation and radio programming on the current generation of Bunnies. He later became the Bunny's driver and the crew supervisor on numerous commercials. Grant has a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California. He picked up his mechanical skills from the machinists at the ILM Model Shop, many of whom date back to Howard the Duck (1986). For fun, Grant competes in BattleBots with his robot Deadblow, which set a record for most number of hits in the first season of the show. Grant lives in a loft in Oakland, California, where he works on his robot and pursues other projects in his spare time.