Jamie Hyneman -
Model Maker, MythBuster, RC Mastermind      page two     return to page one

RCD: What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever had to create for a client?

JH: You don’t want to know. A lot of kids read this magazine. Otherwise, I have made mechanical spiders that are life-size and have fully independent leg movement. Cans and spheres that roll and steer and are controlled entirely inside, that can burn rubber taking off. I’ve played around with exoskeletons—something that you would put on and increase your strength. I have a personal jet pack under construction in the shop now.

RCD: Do you have a personal favorite project or creation that you’ve been involved with?

JH: I have something that I have developed that I can’t tell you about because the military is interested in it. I can tell you that it weighs about 1,500 pounds and moves like nothing anybody has seen before and is quite deadly. There are human-sized robots I built for a GE Plastics commercial. They are “waldo” controlled and we play baseball with them. They move just like humans but are stronger. I invented something I call the ‘superjoint,’ which is a two-axis servo. The bots are made of these joints just kind of one mounted to the other. Then you put a shell over them for the appearance. The joints have a theoretical capability of over 13,000 inch-pounds of torque but weigh about 12 pounds each. There wasn’t anything like that on the market, so I invented it.

RCD: Are things more “trial and error” or do you generally nail things on the first try?

Jamie Hyneman has many titles—wilderness survival expert, captain, diver, linguist, animal wrangler, machinist and chef to name a few. Jamie comes from Indiana farm country, holds a degree in Russian languages and literature, and ran a sailing/diving charter business in the Caribbean for several years before he started his current and most successful career—working in visual effects. After working for several production companies, Jamie became the manager of the Colossal Pictures model shop, where he managed the production of models and special effects for hundreds of commercials and movies. Jamie eventually took over the model shop, created M5 Industries, Inc., and has transformed the company over the past eight years into a powerhouse capable of building just about anything in any timeframe. The top production companies in the country seek out Jamie when unusual or problematic props need to be fabricated, especially if the requests are for animatronics or robotics.  In the midst of all this activity, Jamie has also started producing toy prototypes. M5 is now one of the top toy prototyping companies in the country. Jamie holds several patents, has numerous industry awards and is a long-standing Screen Actors Guild member. Jamie’s eclectic interests have uniquely prepared him for his position as CEO of M5, as well as for the challenges presented by MythBusters.

JH: I consider it bad luck to nail it on the first try. Makes me suspicious. Fate is saving up a big failure for later. I like a small mistake or two in the beginning, and then to nail it. My abilities in engineering are a result of curiosity and experimentation, not training.

At this point, I have a very instinctual understanding of materials and processes that will often allow me to correctly anticipate the behavior of things, and in many cases, I will have something built, that works, by the time a real engineer is done with his plans. Of course, mine will fall apart the minute I’m done with it...and it may need some tweaking to get it right.
 
RCD: Where do you get your inspiration?

JH: Mom. Seriously, I’m just plain curious about things. What would happen if... I could come up with an endless list.

RCD: Will there ever be a “son of Blendo, Blendo Part Deux”?

JH: The sport of robotic combat has sort of lost momentum at this point. While it was a great training ground—and I think it is a great loss as far as encouraging young people to learn engineering and the sciences—the sport quickly degraded into a sort of remote control demolition derby on a small scale. I had much higher hopes for it. Even if it were still out there, at this point everybody would be after me because I’m so well known for remote control stuff, so it would be kind of stress inducing. Also, in spite of my TV persona, I am more interested in creating things than destroying them. I have an unlimited supply of ideas and things I would love to build, and rules set by competitions are irritating.

RCD: Big booms seem to be a favorite thing among your TV family. Do you have a favorite destructive moment?

JH: I’ve said this before many times, but for the record: explosives make me both bored and nervous at the same time. Nervous because they are dangerous and in some ways unpredictable; bored because you just don’t want to go getting creative with the stuff. Blow your head off. There are some things we’ve done for the show though, which I don’t think have aired yet so I can’t spoil the fun, but in one case we had to be a mile and a half away and even then it knocked the breath out of us. I find it interesting what explosives can do, but I don’t enjoy working with them.

A pair of “Mars Rovers” that Jamie and his company, M5 Industries, built in only a week for Pepsi’s very entertaining “Night Watch” commercial. You can see the whole commercial at www.pepsi.com in the promotions section. Image courtesy of The PepsiCo, Inc.

RCD: Free time must be a laughable topic these days, but what would you be doing for fun if you suddenly found out you had the day off?

JH: I read a lot. I am thoroughly entertained doing design work by myself in a dark room with my eyes shut. One can probably guess I am not a party animal; don’t like to socialize much. My favorite thing is to work out heavily until I am tired enough to lie around all day and think and read.
 
RCD: What will you be listening to on the way home today?

JH: I don’t have a radio in my car, which is a little beat-up Toyota pickup. It is reliable and versatile, economical as all autos should be; except I’m pissed they don’t get better mileage. If you have an SUV you should take it to the scrap yard immediately unless you live on a farm.

If I spend any time on the road, I think. When I’m building stuff in the shop, I like to have something on, usually NPR, or I prefer college stations that have weird underground music, or sometimes trance or electronica. When I’m building, I’m moving and doing things that move too slowly, so that’s when I like to be distracted. If you’re drilling a dozen holes in a piece of metal you have to pay attention, but it’s not all that interesting.

We’d like to thank Jamie, the Discovery Channel and everyone who helped us bring you this interview. You can see Jamie and his team in action each Wednesday at 9 pm (ET/PT) on the Discovery Channel’s MythBusters.

Final Page
<<Back  1 | 2 |       

return to the sample articles list