Comments (0) Best Mad Scientist - 2012
Lance Greathouse
Upon first glance, Lance Greathouse looks like a fairly straitlaced guy. He's got a wife, two kids, a suburban home, and a sedate day job as a dental laser technician. Brewing inside the 52-year-old's head, however, are visions of twisted creatures, lethal-looking contraptions, and frightening fire-breathing monsters. Mind you, Greathouse isn't insane but is instead an imaginative cat, and such conjurings are merely inspirations for the kooky contraptions he's been building in his backyard workshop for years. "I come out here when I'm not working and try to think of the wildest stuff I can create," he says. So far, the tinkerer, gearhead, and DIY diehard has constructed robotic scorpions, mechanized skeletons, and wheeled vehicles with fearsome appearances. (A few even starred on TV programs like BattleBots and Robot Wars.)
A majority of Greathouse's creations boast bad-ass propane-powered flamethrowers that emit conflagrations into the air, like the motorized armored three-wheeler dubbed "Lord Humongous." Greathouse's creations are a big hit out at Burning Man in Nevada, which he visits almost every year. He also brings out some of his more benign devices, like the "Ultimate Tailgating Station," a remote-controlled mobile grill and "party on wheels" that includes a barbecue, refrigerated beer tap, stereo system, and yet another flamethrower for roasting vegetables. It was seen on an episode of the National Geographic Channel's reality show Mad Scientists that he was featured on last winter. Viewers also got to glimpse some of the funky motorized wheelchairs Greathouse built for his late brother, who suffered from Parkinson's disease, including one patterned after Dr. Evil's chair from the Austin Powers flicks. "It's appropriate because some people seem to think I'm quite the mad scientist," he jokes. We don't know why they might come to that conclusion, Lance.
