069 – Inspiring Engineers with Gray Bright

Powerful and Profound Podcasts – Year 1

Inspiring Engineers with Gray Bright

“Nearly everything I’ve built has come from a genesis of me going, ‘I wish that existed!’ and there’s always been a fun element to it!”
–Gray Bright

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[In This Episode][Guest Bio][Additional Notes][Text Transcript]

In This Episode

Hi, I’m Steve, the host of the Table Top Inventing Podcast. This is normally the point where our podcast theme comes in with the resonant voice of an inspiring high school educator, Willie Jones.

This is the 5th episode in a series of 6 of our most powerful podcasts from the first year of the Table Top Inventing show.

Here’s a sneak peak from today’s episode…

“Nearly everything I’ve built has come from a genesis of me going, ‘I wish that existed!’ and there’s always been a fun element to it!” –Gray Bright

LOL! I love Gray Bright. His episode was one of the most high energy, fun interviews we did in the first year. You won’t want to miss this funny, high-energy interview with a lively engineer. We talk about questions like:

• Can a robotics engineer actually be any good as a stand-up comedian?
• What happens if you retrofit your car with effects from a racing video game?
• Do real engineers play with Legos?
• How do you make your fridge shutoff automatically when you put on weight?

If you are an inventor and a kid at heart, you will LOVE today’s interview. I am reminded of a quote by the late Randy Pausch, a computer science innovator from Carnegie Mellon. He said,

“I am going to keep having fun every day I have left, because there is no other way of life. You just have to decide whether you are a Tigger or an Eeyore.”

For Randy, having fun was serious business because at the young age of 47 he died of complications from pancreatic cancer. Yet before he died, he had a chance to give his “last lecture” in which he discussed the importance of living life to the fullest and having fun. The dramatic circumstances of his last months compelled him to consider what was really important in life, and he realized that every single day is a gift. Some people like Randy and our guest today, Gray Bright, just seem determined to find all the fun life has to offer.

Gray was one of my favorite guests! He made me laugh all the way through, and I have always been inspired at how early his engineering ideas began. If you want to inspire a young inventor you know to pursue their dreams just like Gray has, you need to know about the Resonance Innovation Fellowship.

This next year we will be taking a select group of 10-15 teens on a journey of self-discovery, excellence with integrity, and innovation leadership. This is not a club, social gathering, or homework tutoring. The students in the Resonance Innovation Fellowship will be on a quest to find impact and world-change through the backdrop of technology.

To find out more email me at stevekurti@ttinvent.com.

Don’t wonder about the future. Email us, and we’ll help you create it!

Guest Bio

Gray Bright is a maker at heart. He still builds robots and builds things from Lego to this day. He perform comedy and has performed around the world, even with the likes of Monty Python.Gray Bright is the ultimate host for “The Tomorrow Show”. A robotic engineer by education, Gray’s career has seen him as a National Buyer and Product Development Manager for Australia’s leading electronics retailer, Dick Smith; to running retail/tech projects for will.i.am to being part of the Innovation team for leading digital ventures agency, Josephmark.

An experienced host and stand-up comic, Gray has performed at iconic venues and events such as The Hollywood Improv, ‘Sydney Comedy Festival’ and ‘Hong Kong Comedy Festival’ plus with ‘Monty Python’ at London’s O2 Arena. Effortlessly charming and charismatic, the interview guests and audience feel an affinity with Gray, who personifies the notion that engineers are the new rock stars.

The Tomorrow Show

#graysmoothie in Action

Here’s the story behind “Gray FM” and “Gray TV”:

I was heading to Byron Bay during the Australian summer of 2005. There was three car loads of use heading up from Melbourne and I thought it would be fun to listen to music collectively, so I built Gray FM.​ I also needed to mount a house style FM antenna to the roof of our car so we could broadcast, it actually could over broadcast major stations with was great fun in large pockets of traffic because we could karakor over the top of the hit songs playing on the major networks…​

We​ also​ put a Walkie talkie in each car so people could ‘request’ a song​.

Gray TV was the next progression, after building this I had first hand experience of how hard TV broadcasting is, specifically getting broadcast range. I could actually only broadcast about 10m, so it meant only me and my neighbour could watch the ‘Gray TV’ broadcasted episodes of Voltron.

Favorite Quote 

“And Now for Something Completely Different” – Monty Python

 About Making

Gray is working on a robotic sidekick for his talk show. Conan has Andy Richter – He’s building a robot version for his talk show.

About Learning

Today he studied up on social media clustering and demographic analysis – all in an effort to become better equipped to target specific clusters for his live late night style talk show focused on Science and Technology – ‘The Tomorrow Show – with Gray Bright’.

Additional Notes

Connect:

• Email: gray@graybright.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheTomorrowShowWithGrayBright
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/graybright/
• Twitter: @graybright
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ItsGrayBright & Tomorrow Show Channel
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/graybright

Links:

• Gray Bright’s webpage: http://graybright.com/

• Gray Bright’s resume: [PDF]

• The Tomorrow Show: http://thetomorrowshow.io/

• Gray Bright Stand Up Routine on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kcWBHd9uVM

• Gray Bright’s Awesome YouTube Invention Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheGrayBright

• Gray’s iPhone controlled Taser!: https://www.youtube.com/user/ItsGrayBright

• Random Taco Video by Gray: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pgqTrKxRJc

Full Text Transcript – Coming Soon!