For 18 months, Joe Grand and Zoz Brooks were co-hosts of Discovery Channel's Prototype This, an engineering entertainment program that followed the real-life design process of a unique prototype every episode.
At DEF CON 17, Joe and Zoz talked about the show and a few of their favorite builds. The dynamic nerd duo returns to DEF CON 20 with design details and never-before-seen pictures and videos of even more ridiculous and crazy projects, including the Mind Controlled Car, Boxing Robots, Six-Legged All Terrain Vehicle, Get Up and Go, and Automated Pizza Delivery, each of which had to be designed and built in a matter of weeks.
Joe Grand is an electrical engineer a nd hardware hacker specializing in the design of consumer and hobbyist embedded systems. He created the electronic badges for DEF CON 14-18 and was a co-host of Discovery Channel's Prototype This. Back in the day, he was a member of the infamous hacker group L0pht Heavy Industries. Twitter: @joegrand http://www.grandideastudio.com/
Zoz is a robotics engineer, pyrochemist, and inveterate tinkerer. He got his PhD from the Robotic Life group at the MIT Media Lab primarily so he could say "Trust me, I'm a doctor" to other robots. One of his biggest goals is to restore science and engineering education to pride of place as a top global priority, so when he discovered that this aim could be combined with his love of media whoring he co-hosted Prototype This! for the Discovery Channel.