Mr. SCSIcide on TV!

[+SpiceWare]

I was flipping channels and caught part of Prototype This and thought one of the hosts looked familiar. Turned out to be Joe Grand, who I got to meet at AGE back in 2003. SCSIcide was one of the first homebrews I acquired, which I purchased from Joe at the expo (the other was Thrust+ Platinum, which I purchased from Al ).

 

Show looks very interesting, I've set the DVR to start recording them.

[Albert]

Yes, it's a fun show and I've been recording it from the beginning. I had the opportunity to visit them out on the set (on Treasure Island) last year. Lots of fun.. Here's a crappy picture I took with my cell phone. I have more pictures taken with my regular camera, need to find them..

 

 

..Al

[DEBRO]

I didn't know Joe Grand was one of the guys on this show I remember watching a show and Prototype This was next. I was going to watch but decided to go to bed. If I knew Joe was a part of this then I would have watched every episode. I'll be adding it to the DVR lineup tonight.

[+SpiceWare]

I hadn't watched Discovery in a while as Comcast didn't offer it in HD. I switched to DirecTV recently and in spite of Comcasts "1000 shows in HD"* I now have a lot more viewing options.

 

*they're counting on-demand viewing of the various HBO, Showtime etc shows, so they count 1 for HBO, 12 for the 12 on-demand episodes of True Blood, 12 for the on-demand episodes of Entourage, etc. to come up with 1000. With DirecTV I get more overall shows as I get channels like Discovery HD and Sci-Fi HD that Comcast doesn't even offer.

Edited December 12, 2008 by SpiceWare

[+Nathan Strum]

I saw the intro to it (my DVR caught the first few minutes at the end of MythBusters) and wondered if that was the same Joe Grand.

 

Maybe I'll start watching it now. It looks interesting, but then again, so did Smash Lab before it actually aired.

 

(And I get Discovery in HD. )

[yuppicide]

I didn't know that either.. I watched one or two episodes and now feel compelled to watch more.

[+SpiceWare]

I think this is the shirt Joe was wearing, from his Kingpin site. The G is similar to the one at his Grand Idea Studio site.

Edited December 13, 2008 by SpiceWare

[Albert]

I think this is the shirt Joe was wearing, from his Kingpin site. The G is similar to the one at his Grand Idea Studio site.

Yes, he can be seen wearing that shirt, among others.. I have one of those shirts myself.

 

..Al

[+SpiceWare]

hmm - Lone Star Light shirt and Joe Grand's TOP TEN THINGS THAT SUCK

[+batari]

What were they building in that episode?

 

EDIT: Or is Joe a regular? I'm unclear on that (never seen the show.)

Edited December 13, 2008 by batari

[+SpiceWare]

He's a regular. They were building a wearable airbag. You can watch some of the episodes online.

[+SpiceWare]

In this week's episode, Virtual Sea Adventure, Joe played Missile Command on a 4-switch while he was talking about how he'd normally use a joystick for the control but couldn't because it would be used underwater. Not sure why, but they had some black tape covering the end of the cartridge so you couldn't see the name.

 

I also liked his custom circuit board, "Joe was here" was on it where it would be covered by a chip.

Edited December 19, 2008 by SpiceWare

[joesmooth]

In this week's episode, Virtual Sea Adventure, Joe played Missile Command on a 4-switch while he was talking about how he'd normally use a joystick for the control but couldn't because it would be used underwater. Not sure why, but they had some black tape covering the end of the cartridge so you couldn't see the name.

 

I also liked his custom circuit board, "Joe was here" was on it where it would be covered by a chip.

Heh heh. I've been trying for the whole season to somehow play Atari on the show and I finally got to! We put tape over the name of the cartridge to prevent any lawsuits from overzealous corporations trying to protect their trademarks.

 

The show was a lot of fun but a LOT of work - it took about 18 months to film all 13 episodes for the season and it was a real challenge to not only handle the engineering side of things, but also the TV production side. The final cuts only show a small snippet of what actually went on with the build (we filmed about 100 hours of tape per build and the final show is only 44 minutes), but I think the editors did a pretty good job capturing most of the key engineering process and still made it pretty cool. My favorite episodes so far are the Robotic Firefighter Assistant (the PyroPack in particular), the Waterslide Simulator, and the Virtual Sea Adventure (I got to kiss a dolphin and got SCUBA certified!)

 

Joe

[+SpiceWare]

Yeah, avoiding lawsuits is probably a good thing.

 

18 months to film 13 episodes? Aren't they supposed to be "2 weeks"? I suppose you could be coming up with ideas, or doing other things on the off weeks.

 

I've seen the airbag and virtual sea adventure episodes. Also watched the PyroPack episode online - that was cool. I'll have to catch the earlier episodes when they repeat.

 

I was wondering, has anything gone beyond prototype stage? Or is that covered in an "end of season" episode? Any word on a 2nd season, or do we have to wait another 18 months for more?

 

And in case you hadn't seen it, I did a review of SCSIcide.

[joesmooth]

Yeah, avoiding lawsuits is probably a good thing.

 

18 months to film 13 episodes? Aren't they supposed to be "2 weeks"? I suppose you could be coming up with ideas, or doing other things on the off weeks.

 

I've seen the airbag and virtual sea adventure episodes. Also watched the PyroPack episode online - that was cool. I'll have to catch the earlier episodes when they repeat.

 

I was wondering, has anything gone beyond prototype stage? Or is that covered in an "end of season" episode? Any word on a 2nd season, or do we have to wait another 18 months for more?

 

And in case you hadn't seen it, I did a review of SCSIcide.

 

Most of the builds were actually 2 weeks, but we spent the first 6 months or so brainstorming ideas and had a slow start due to changes at Discovery Channel, among other things.

 

Nothing has gone past the prototype stages. We filed some patents on key elements of some of the projects we feel are worth protecting, but who knows what will come of that.

 

As for Season 2, we'll have to wait and see! The ratings apparently have been pretty good so far, but Discovery needs to make the final decision if they want to lay out the cash for another season. It's a *huge* amount of work and TV networks like shows to be created quickly for little money, so they can make as much profit as possible. Engineering takes time and money, which is already two strikes against us

 

Take care,

 

Joe

[Snider-man]

Congrats on the gig Joe! I had the show on for the first time a week or so ago and had no idea you were on it. I think I was in another room and I heard the announcer introduce "Joe Grand" and I turned to my wife and mentioned that I met a guy by that name at CGE 2001. Walked into the other room and was somewhat stunned to see your smilin' mug on the tube!

 

Plus the show's damned good. I've been watching it ever since. It'd probably be a regular show I'd watch even if I didn't know ya. I saw a repeat of the Virtual Deep Sea today. Very cool stuff you're messing with!

[+SpiceWare]

Some of the earlier episodes are back online. Now I can catch up on the episodes I missed

 

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/prototype-this/index.html

[+SpiceWare]

New episodes are airing! This weeks episode was Flying Lifeguard - "The team attempts to prototype two different flying lifeguard systems to save swimmers in danger on unguarded beaches." I spotted Joe's head silkscreened onto one of the circuit boards.

 

Next 2 episodes are Gecko Superhero Suit on the 19th and Robo Dog Sitter on the 26th at 4pm ET/PT.

[+Random Terrain]

Just checked out some clips of the show at YouTube. Here's one of them:

 

[joesmooth]

I just posted a bunch of random behind-the-scenes videos from the show here, too:

 

http://www.youtube.com/user/kingpinempire

 

The last 3 episodes are pretty good, but not my favorites. Watch the final episode for a surprise cameo appearance from my new prototype...

 

Joe

 

 

Just checked out some clips of the show at YouTube. Here's one of them:

 

[+Random Terrain]

I just posted a bunch of random behind-the-scenes videos from the show here, too:

 

http://www.youtube.com/user/kingpinempire

Holy cow! Sounds like you're inside of a giant floating vibrator:

 

 

Scary!

[+SpiceWare]

Watched the last episode last night - congratulations on Ben!

[joesmooth]

Watched the last episode last night - congratulations on Ben!

 

Thanks! It was cool that they worked him into the episode - the timing just happened to be right. I'm happy about that

 

Joe

[Ian Primus]

Congrats Joe!

 

I had loved watching Prototype This, but never knew it was _our_ Joe Grand until I saw this thread. I should have connected the dots sooner, but...

 

-Ian

[+SpiceWare]

The 2nd episode used Optical Glyph Tracking to control the Boxing Robots

 

The July issue of Popular Science has a 3-D cover which uses the same technology. They let you print a copy of the cover in case you don't have the issue handy:

http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/popsci/