Grant Imahara

Electronics and radio-control specialist Grant Imahara is a former animatronics engineer and model maker for George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic, the special-effects shop where he worked on such movies as The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence and Van Helsing. Grant also worked on The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions.

In addition to operating R2-D2 (one of only a handful of official operators), Grant has another claim to beloved-character fame: developing a custom circuit to cycle the Energizer Bunny's arm beats and ears at a constant rate. In fact, he's responsible for all the electronics installation and radio programming on the current generation of bunnies, even serving as the bunny's driver and crew supervisor on numerous commercials.

A native of Los Angeles, Calif., Grant earned a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California. He's also the author of the book Kickin' Bot: An Illustrated Guide to Building Combat Robots. His own machine, "Deadblow," is a former BattleBots champion.