A dream job … or just a job of dreams?

In this recent article in Wired Magazine, we learn about a Disney Imagineer who is building workable models of the futuristic gadgets and devices featured in Star Wars movies.

Lanny Smoot, the only research fellow in Disney’s history, and part of that company’s legendary Imageneering Department, has the task of making the science and technology behind so many of the gadgets we see in movies work in real life.

But maybe more interesting is his latest invention, a forerunner to a Holodeck-type experience similar to what we saw in Star Trek: The Next Generation. More recently known for building, working light sabers, he has now created, and Omni directional hollow tile floor, which adapts user movement in a virtual reality space. You can see a cool video of it here.

Disney research fellow and Imagineer, Lanny Smoot. (Orig. Photo by Simone Niamani Thompson)

Smoot’s interest in gadgets and inventions goes back about 58 years. That’s when his father brought some odds and ends home and showed his son how to wire a circuit. According to the article in WIRED, Smoot recalls: “once he got the bell to ring and the lamp to light, it lit up my entire career.”

The article continues:

There weren’t a lot of Black engineers to look up to in his neighborhood, but Smoot says he grew to admire characters like Mission: Impossible’s Barney Collier, who could put together the show’s gadgets and hold his own in hand-to-hand combat. In junior high, a counselor steered him toward Brooklyn Technical High School, and when it came time to apply to colleges, he got into every one he tried for, from MIT to Columbia. He just couldn’t pay for them.

But that’s just the first chapter in a truly fascinating career. I highly recommend reading this article about a most interesting individual.