Jim Rugg James " Jim ( my ) " W . Rugg was an Emmy Award - nominated artist who worked on all three seasons of , excepting the two pilots , and , where Joe Lombardi and Bob Overbeck respectively , fulfilled the role . He was responsible for all the on - stage live production special effects , such as explosions . He most famously oversaw the iconic mechanical and wiring effects of the main bridge , other standing sets , and special set pieces such as Nomad , Flint ' s M - 4 , and the Guardian of Forever . It was Captain James T . Kirk performer William Shatner who had put it very succinctly but spot - on , when he acknowledged Rugg in his memoirs , " " If it blinked , beeped , moved , lit up or even exploded , it was rigged by Jim Rugg " " ( " Star Trek Memories " , 1994 , p . 125 ) Much of Rugg ' s handiwork could explicitly be discerned on screen , among others in the series ' most acclaimed episode , where he was responsible for the lighting effects of the Guardian of Forever . Apart from this he constructed Spock ' s computer - aid to access the information in his tricorder for the episode , as his supervisor , Matt Jefferies , recalled , " " When a script came out , Roddenberry would say , " I need something that supposedly does such and such . . . come up with something . " So we would work together on the workbench with Jimmy Rugg and see what we could cobble together . " " , to which Rugg added , " " We got a bunch of antique vacuum tubes – real ' 30s types – and added a few blinking lights among them . " " Rugg subsequently oversaw its destruction in the episode . ( " Cinefantastique " , Vol 17 # 2 , p . 24 ) Shatner ' s admiration for Rugg notwithstanding , his and his team ' s work was not entirely without its risks as both Shatner and co - star Leonard Nimoy could attest to . " " Bill ( Shatner ) and I did have an experience – it might have been on , I don ' t remember which episode – but it was not an exterior moment . We were on a sound stage when it happened . There was an explosion that went off , off - camera , and typically , when there ' s a planned explosion in a scene in a movie , they will open the sound stage doors so the concussion has some place to go ; it can go outside the doors . Well , they had failed to open the doors , so there was a big concussion within the building , and we were close to it , Bill and I . Since then , Bill and I both have a ringing in our ears , which is called . We believe it was caused by that particular experience . It might have been on that episode , but it wasn ' t out at Vasquez Rocks . It was inside a sound stage . " " , Nimoy elaborated , recalling an accident . Somewhat operating in anonymity , he was nevertheless highly valued by the main responsible operations overseer , Producer Robert Justman , " " Next , special effects wizard Jim Rugg and his crew wired every console so that any section could be removed without wreaking havoc upon the electronics in the remaining ones ( This monumental job took many weeks of work , and only became operational shortly before we filmed our very first episode , . ) " " ( ) , as well as by his direct department head whose designs he had to co - visualize , Art Director Matt Jefferies , who had stated , " " And of course , blessed with not only John Dwyer , who was a very talented workaholic , and Jim Rugg on special effects , and what went on upstairs in the Art Department , I could depend on brother John , or whoever else was up there , that if any questions came up out of the mail [ note : internal ] about how something was working , they could solve it . And with that kind of help , Hell , you can ' t lose ! I was in great shape ! " " ( TOS Season 2 DVD - special feature , " Designing the Final Frontier " ) Aside from overseeing his own small team of electricians , he also worked closely together with colleagues Set Decorator John Dwyer and ( from season two onward ) Set Designer John Jefferies , the younger brother to Matt Jefferies , and their teams . Late , Jim Rugg was brought back to the " Star Trek " franchise on recommendation of by then temporary Technical Consultant Matt Jefferies , to help out with the design and construction of the refit - " Enterprise " bridge set for the newly conceived " " television project . The operational manager for that project , Producer Robert Goodwin , noted in a progress memo dated , " " The shell " [ note : of the bridge ] " should be completed by the end of August . At the same time , Matt Jefferies , Joe Jennings and special - effects man Jim Rugg are at work designing and researching new types of instrumentation that will be used within the bridge , including new kinds of computer graphic displays , touch control switches , etc . " " ( " " , p . 36 ) Yet , having completed most of the work on the bridge , when the project was upgraded to the movie in late November 1977 , Rugg opted to end his involvement , and even though the near complete bridge was used in the movie , his work went uncredited . The " Original Series " occupied somewhat of a special place in Rugg ' s heart as he had held on to a substantial collection of screen - used production items until his death in 2004 . His collection came in handy though , when he donated his collection of screen - used " Original Series " captain ' s chair ' s buttons to " Star Trek " model maker Greg Jein , for use in the acclaimed sixth season homage episode , were they were featured on the partially reconstructed " Original Series " bridge set . ( " Cinefantastique " , Vol . 24 , issue 3 / 4 , p . 26 ) On that episode , it was Dick Brownfield , originally a junior member on Rugg ' s team , who had gone on to become for the modern television franchise what Rugg had been for the " Original Series " , whereas a first season apprentice , Roger Dorney , went on to become a visual effects staffer on " The Motion Picture " , employed at Apogee , Inc . . Career outside " Star Trek " . Hailing from North Dakota , Jim Rugg ' s family moved to Los Angeles in 1924 , five years after his birth . After graduating from Redondo Union High School , he attended Pepperdine and UCLA . He became a ham radio operator in 1938 and served as a radio operator in the US Army during World War II . After the war he started a career in the burgeoning television industry . During his long career in television , Rugg designed special effects for such series as " Mission : Impossible " , " Hawaii Five - O " , " Barnaby Jones " ( starring Lee Meriwether ) , " Cannon " , and " Perry Mason " . He also worked on several feature films including " River of No Return " ( 1954 , with Hal Baylor ) , " Mary Poppins " ( 1964 ) , and Douglas Trumbull ' s 1972 science fiction film " Silent Running " , which also featured special effects and visual effects work by Jim Dow , Paul Kraus , Don Trumbull , John Dykstra , Richard Alexander , Robert Shepherd , Richard Yuricich , Bill Shourt , and Trumbull himself . Whether or not it had something to do with " Star Trek " , Trumbull ' s movie in particular made an impression on Rugg , " " We all felt that we were doing something unusual . The grips and technicians and other people who worked on it all got spellbound by it . We ' d all love to work for Doug Trumbull . " " He missed out on working with Trumbull again , when he decided to leave " Phase II " , before Trumbull was brought in for its successor . An unassuming man , virtually no published interviews with him on his work are known to exist , save for the comments he made on " Silent Running " for " Cinefantastique " magazine ( Vol . 2 # 3 , November 1972 ) . Rugg retired in 1981 . His son Tom , one of four children , has recorded a statement his father made on that occasion , " " If I never blow up another car , that ' s fine with me . " " Tom Rugg actually had planned to write a book about his father ' s involvement with the " Original Series " as he had related in February 1993 , hoping to talk his father into doing the book and working on it together . Yet , as he had stated four years later , " " The book was never written . However , I gathered raw material for the book . I taped several hours of interviews with my father , getting details about the effects on each show . I also taped an interview with Al Jones , one of the other effects guys on the show . And I ' ve transcribed most tapes , and my father has edited the transcriptions . Then I got busy with other things , and that ' s where the book sits . Will the book ever be written ? I don ' t know . I hope so , but I ' ll need to find some time to do some more interviews ( with other participants ) , or else decide to put together the book using what I have now . " " Intervened by his father ' s death in 2004 , the book has yet to materialize . Jim Rugg passed away at the age of 85 , due to the complications from Alzheimer ' s disease . Emmy Award Nomination . As Mechanical Special Effects Jim Rugg received the following Emmy Award nomination , which has also been his only motion picture industry award consideration ,