One of the most intriguing things about the Mars Exploration Rovers mission is how this mission does not conform to stereotypes. Say "designing and building instruments" for a NASA project and you likely think of clean rooms, giant test facilities, and that cliché (now seriously out of date) of engineers in white coats with slide rules (say what?) in pocket protectors. Of course, there's some of that in Mars Exploration Rovers project (except for the slide rules) but Honeybee Robotics and its lead engineers, Steve Gorevan and Tom Myrick and their diverse, young team, show that this mission is clearly not your father's (or grandpa's) NASA. Honeybee has developed the RAT in a building in SOHO, New York, that some say was designed and once used by inventor Thomas Edison. We'll share comments from many of the engineers as "To MARS with MER" proceeds: some of the folks who built the RAT will, in fact, relocate to JPL, across the country, when the rovers are using "their" instrument on Mars. As you'll see, the design started with a doodle by science P.I. Steve Squyres on a restaurant napkin (it's displayed on Steve Gorevan's wall at Honeybee!) And soon it'll be operating on Mars. We think Edison would be well pleased with recent developments!

Steve's Gorevan's BIO (from the Cornell Athena site)
http://athena.cornell.edu/kids/cs_gorevan.html