Grant Masaru Imahara (1970 - 2020)

Born 23 Oct 1970 in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States

Ancestors

Died 13 Jul 2020 at age 49 in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States

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Biography

Grant Imahara is Notable.

Electrical engineer, roboticist, modelmaker, author and television personality best known as a member of the Mythbusters Build Team.

Grant Masaru Imahara, whose name in Japanese was Imahara Masaru (今原 真申), was born on 23 October 1970. Grant attended the University of Southern California (USC) in the engineering department. His interaction with THX creator Tomlinson Holman inspired him to stay in the trade and get an internship at Lucasfilm's THX division.^[1]

After Grant graduated in 1993 with a Bachelors of Science in electrical engineering, he was first hired on an engineer at THX for three years and then at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) where he worked in visual effects. He would remain at ILM for nine years, working behind the scenes on such films as The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), Galaxy Quest (1999), AI: Artificial Intelligence (2001), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Van Helsing (2004) and xXx: State of the Union (2005). He also contributed to The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions (both 2003) as a model maker foreman through Eon. However his greatest contributions may have been for the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999-2005) where he was one of three to operate the droid R2-D2 and had updated the electronics of the original R2 droids.^[1]

His work with robotics also led him to create the combat robot Deadblow, which was runner-up in the BattleBots Season 1.0 Middleweight Championship in 2000 and the winner of the Season 2.0 Middleweight Rumble. Deadblow would also appear later in various episodes of Mythbusters. He also built the remote controlled animatronic robot Geoff Peterson for The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and the Energizer Bunny.

While at ILM, he became the colleague of Adam Savage and Tori Bellici, both propmakers who would go on to host Discovery Channel's Mythbusters television series. By Season 3 in 2005, Grant was hired on to replace welder Scottie Chapman. He remained a member of the Build Team and a co-host alongside Tory and Kari Byron until the Build Team departed in 2014.

Grant would return with his Build Team brethren Tory and Kari on the Netflix series White Rabbit Project, which ran for one season.

Grant also made various appearances in YouTube channels such as Wil Wheaton's Tabletop and web series like The Guild and Star Trek Continues, where he played the role of Hikaru Sulu.

The last known project Grant was involved in was building an animatronic Grogu ("Baby Yoda") while he was consulting for Disney Research and contracted at Spectral Moon, with the intention of touring children's hospitals to cheer up sick children.^[2]

Death

Imahara died after suffering a brain aneurysm on 13 July 2020 at age 49.

Legacy

Based on Grant's previous work with R2-D2, modelmaker Don Bies named a feature inside the astromech unit after him: Imaharatronics logic display sensors. It was included with the Star Wars Complete Visual Dictionary.^[3]

After his death, the Grant Imahara STEAM Foundation was announced on what would be his 50th birthday by his mother, colleagues and friends. Greg Munson, the co-founder of BattleBots revealed that they had renamed the "Best Design Award" to the "Grant Imahara Best Design Award".

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Grant Imahara Class of '93: Hits and Myths. Backup on Internet Archive: Wayback Machine. Accessed 4 May 2021.
2. ↑ Burton, Bonnie. "Former Mythbuster's Baby Yoda Robot Will Cheer Up Sick Kids." CNET. Accessed 5 May 2021.
3. ↑ Star Wars: Expanded Universe - Building a Complete Visual Dictionary. October 31, 2006. Backup on Internet Archive: Wayback Machine. Accessed 4 May 2021.

• "California Birth Index, 1905-1995," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VGMN-9WV : 27 November 2014), Grant M Imahara, 23 Oct 1970; citing Los Angeles, California, United States, Department of Health Services, Vital Statistics Department, Sacramento.
• "United States Public Records, 1970-2009," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KR1F-29B : 23 May 2014), Grant Masaru Imahara, Residence, San Francisco, California, United States; a third party aggregator of publicly available information.
• Ives, Mike. "Grant Imahara, Engineer Who Co-Hosted ‘MythBusters,’ Dies at 49." The New York Times. Accessed 14 Jul 2020.

See also

• Grant Imahara on Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
• Grant Imahara on Wookieepedia, the Star Wars Wiki
• Grant Imahara on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)
• Wikidata: Item Q320523, en:Wikipedia