engineering

Grant Imahara

Grant Imahara is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Grant Imahara rather than just read about it. In short: Grant Masaru Imahara (October 23, 1970 – July 13, 2020) was an American electrical engineer, roboticist, television host and actor. He was best known for his work on the television series MythBusters, on which he designed, built, and operated numerous robots and machines to test myths over the course of the show.

Key takeaways

Grant Imahara belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Grant Imahara to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Grant Imahara from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Grant Masaru Imahara (October 23, 1970 – July 13, 2020) was an American electrical engineer, roboticist, television host and actor. He was best known for his work on the television series MythBusters, on which he designed, built, and operated numerous robots and machines to test myths over the course of the show. Imahara began his career at Lucasfilm, where he worked in the THX division as an engineer and in the Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) division in visual effects. His work has been featured in films from franchises such as Star Wars, Jurassic Park, The Matrix, and Terminator. His first foray into television was on the robot combat series BattleBots, for which he designed and competed with his robot Deadblow and later returned as a judge. Imahara was also a chief model maker with ILM on such movie projects as Galaxy Quest. In 2005, Imahara joined the cast of Mythbusters as a member of the Build Team, appearing in over 200 episodes of the series until his departure in 2014. In 2010, he designed the animatronic "robot skeleton" Geoff Peterson to serve as a sidekick on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. He starred in the 2016 Netflix series White Rabbit Project alongside his MythBusters co-stars Kari Byron and Tory Belleci. Imahara portrayed Hikaru Sulu in all 11 episodes of the web series Star Trek Continues. He also played Lieutenant Masaru in the 2015 movie Star Trek: Renegades. Imahara died on July 13, 2020, at the age of 49, after suffering a ruptured intracranial aneurysm.

Early life Imahara was born on October 23, 1970, to a Japanese-American family in Los Angeles, California. His Japanese name is Imahara Masaru (今原真申). Imahara graduated from the University of Southern California (USC) with a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering. For a time, he considered switching majors with the intention of becoming a screenwriter, but he decided to stay on the engineering track after assisting Tomlinson Holman, a professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Imahara was a live action role-playing gamer.

Career

Early work After graduation, Imahara was hired as an engineer for Lucasfilm's THX division; he then moved to the company's visual effects division, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), where he worked for nine years. While at ILM, he was involved in several films, including The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Galaxy Quest, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, Van Helsing, and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. Imahara has been credited in many feature films as a model maker. In particular, he was credited for his work in updating the aging R2-D2 robots for the Star Wars prequel trilogy. As an official Artoo Technician, he made a cameo appearance in the mockumentary R2-D2: Beneath the Dome. He was also credited as chief model maker for Industrial Light & Magic on such projects as Galaxy Quest in 1999 wherein he designed custom circuit boards to provide the lighting effects on the NSEA-Protector space ship engine nacelles.

MythBusters

Imahara joined MythBusters on the invitation of friend and occasional employer Jamie Hyneman and former ILM colleague Linda Wolkovitch, who was an associate producer of MythBusters. He joined as the third member of the Build Team along with Kari Byron and Tory Belleci, replacing former MythBusters welder Scottie Chapman. His colleagues often jokingly referred to him as the "geek" of the Build Team. He often built robots that were needed for the show and specialized in operating computers and electronics for testing the myths. Imahara, along with Byron and Belleci, left the show after the 2014 season.

White Rabbit Project Imahara reunited with Byron and Belleci for the 2016 White Rabbit Project, a Netflix Original Series, in which the team investigated topics such as jailbreaks, superpower technology, heists, and bizarre World War II weapons, evaluated against a defined set of criteria and explored through experiments, builds, and tests. The complete first season of the series was released on Netflix on December 9, 2016. Despite receiving good reviews, the series was not renewed.

Other work In addition to his role on MythBusters, he is known for his appearances on BattleBots, where he designed and competed with his robot Deadblow. By 2018, he was selected as one of the judges for the eighth season on BattleBots. He made a cameo appearance on Syfy's Eureka and the web series The Guild. Other works include designing the circuit that created the rhythmic oscillation of the arms of the modern Energizer Bunny; leading Team ILM to victory in an appearance on Junkyard Mega-Wars; and authoring Kickin' Bot: An Illustrated Guide to Building Combat Robots (ISBN 0-7645-4113-7). Imahara was a cast member and story writer for the short film Architects of Evil, created for the 2004 Industrial Light & Magic Backyard Film Contest. He was a mentor for the Richmond High robotics team Biomechs #841 for the FIRST Robotics Competition, lending his expert guidance on how to create the right robot for the right job. Imahara was profiled in the magazine IEEE Spectrum for an issue focusing on engineering dream jobs.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Grant Imahara

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Grant Imahara claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Grant Imahara before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Grant Imahara ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Grant Imahara

In research: Grant Imahara appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Grant Imahara in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Grant Imahara is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1970 births, 2020 deaths, 21st-century American male actors, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Grant Imahara outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Grant Imahara” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Grant Imahara in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Grant Imahara means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Grant Imahara out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Grant Imahara in simple terms?

Why does Grant Imahara matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Grant Imahara?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Grant Imahara.