American Library Association Convention

Interesting the things that come up for Artoo and I to do!  This one popped in at the last second from fellow builder Cole Horton.  A publisher needed R2 to appear in a stage presentation at the Seattle Convention Center- what a hoot this was!

The picture above was during the presentation with Tom Angleberger who wrote "The Strange Case of Origami Yoda".  Now I had never heard of this book, but if your about 10 years old I guess it is a huge best seller.

Tom was a great guy, loved working with Artoo and we had a blast onstage entertaining Librarians from all across the country.  He has a new book coming out soon, "Art2-D2's Guide to Folding & Doodling"

All in all we had a lot of fun seeing how Librarians fell for R2, getting our pictures taken and just plain messing about.  The Seattle Conventon Center staff & all the people from ALA were just great to work with.  We hope to return!

Left to right, Tom Angleberger, Artoo-Deetoo, Bob Jacobsen

Pacific NW R2 Builders Day

On October 27th several of the Northwest R2 Builders had an informal get together at Galaxy Hobby in Lynnwood.  Pictured above are (from left to right) Todd, Chris & Bob with their R2's

Another R2 builder Carol checking out Todd's R2 that is getting ready for motors and electronics.

Three R2's looking good.  Great thing about these events are sharing ideas and seeing better ways to do things.  I got a great idea from Todd's R2 that will help me with my arms (more later).  Also an excellent motivator to keep building or improving your droid!!

Star Wars Kinect Launch Party

R2 and I spent 4 days at Bellevue Square mall in the Microsoft store promoting the Star Wars Kinect launch.  What a wonderful time!  The store team was great to work with and the customers had a blast.  People just stopped dead in their tracks when they saw R2 and with the store staff talking with R2 and telling him where to go and what to do the effect was perfect!

R2 inspects the new xbox special edition.  Hmmmmm The paint job looks familiar...

R2 in the front of the Microsoft store.  This is a seriously beautiful place and R2 really liked the nice smooth and clean floors!

R2 inspecting the inventory. 

Thanks to the Microsoft Store and all the team members for having us!

Seattle Christian School

Seattle Christian school has a very new robotics program underway and we had the oportunity to go down for an assembly with the entire grade school to help promote it. 

 I had an operator so I got to interact with R2 as we talked about science, robotics and how I built R2

After the entire grade school was dismissed we got to meet with some of the robotics students for a more close up look at R2, was a very bright group of kids with great questions.

You have to love a principal who carries a lightsaber!!

Kinect All Access Video

The Microsoft Kinect All Access Episode 2 with my R2 is up on You Tube.

 

You can find it Here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ4wypo3vUU

R2-D2 Guest Hosts XBox Live Kinect All Access

Wow, R2 and I had a great time as R2 was the guest host of XBox live Kinect All Access.  We traveled to Microsoft Studios for the filming.  Arriving early because of touchy weather (it was snowing) R2 hung out in the building lobby for a few hours greeting many wonderful Microsoft folks.  It was a great time and lots of fun.  We then got down to work on filming.

Kate Yeager Kinect All Access Host

Nic Fillingham Kinect All Access Host

Kate & Nic were very nice to R2 and we all had a lot of fun working in front of the camera.  R2 behaved himself very well and is definately not camera shy!!

Scott Elnes - Producer & Writer

R2 with C3PO at PAX Prime 2011

This was a chance of a lifetime as R2 got to finally work with his counterpart C3PO at PAX Prime 2011.  Microsoft wanted R2 and C3PO to help promote Star Wars for Kinect that comes out in 2012.  PAX is the premier game convention in the country with about 60,000 attendees.  Before actually going to the convention we traveled to Microsoft to meet with some of the game developers and their families.

Meeting Developers and their families

Lots of children came to greet us - FUN!!

After spending time at Microsoft we then went to PAX at the Seattle Convention Center.  C3PO and R2 were total rock stars!!  Everywhere we went people went crazy and 3 security guards traveled with us. 

Photo op with  fans

Taking a break on the skybridge with C3PO

There was action everywhere!!  We even took a minute to try out Dance Central!! Check us out on You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FieM-3Tdhxo

R2-D2 & Bob

And here is how it all comes together!!  Lots of little final details are done and now R2 is running and looking good.  I have many features I will be adding as I go including the utility arms, periscope, launching lightsaber, gripper arm etc. but for now its just nice to be looking finished and running well.

Utility Arms

Another job in the seemingling edless stream of "small" things to do to get R2 looking good are the utility arms.  I plan on having these operational (at a later date) but for now will be happy just to get them painted and hung.  I had some aluminum arms I got a long time ago so I drilled and tapped a hole in the backside for a threaded stud then mounted a model airplave cantrol arm to it.  This will give me a place to attach my servo linkage.

This shot is of the full arms with "fingers" attached.

 

Coin Returns

One of the projects I needed to do to get R2 looking good was to make the coin returns.  I took some scraps left over from all the panels I punched out of the skins and made 3 pieces with the correct dimensions.  I then took a "nibbler" tool I got at Harbor freight and punched out the square hole.  I was worried but the nibbler worked great!

Below are the 3 panels - one with the hole cutout.  I just cleaned up the hole with a file.

I got some very thinn sheet aluminum at the hobby store and cut out the back parts using a pair of scissors.  I bent these to shape and glued them together with good old JB Weld.

Here is the installed parts after wet sanding and then finishing with a scotchbrite pad.

Holoprojectors

Spent most of the day soldering in the wiring for the Holoprojectors and then cleaning up some of the wiring on my electrical panels.  While not the final version of the wiring I have planned, it looks better for the time being and will be more durable as I go forward.

This is the inside of the main electrcal panel in the open position.  I tied the wiring down by drilling two small holes side by side into the ABS then loopng a small black cable tie around them,  It almost disapears into the panel and is easy to remove and re-tie if I add additional wiring.

This view shows the main panel in the closed position.  I still need to come up with a good method to secure the rear door...

The completed dome with all the lights on.  In the future I plan to add more features and hopefully a video projector in the front Holoprojector but for now this looks pretty darn good.

R2 Speaks

Along with getting the Holoprojectors and a few other detail parts finished up one of the other main projects was to get the sound working.  I found a nice small motorcycle amp on eBay and mounted it to a plastic panel on the inside left leg.  I bought a few cheap speakers and tried them but the sound was horrible.  On a hunch I dug around in my garage and found some old stereo speakers that I took apart.  These yeilded two PERFECT speakers that fit perfectly and sound fantastic.  I copied a few extra sound files off my Star Wars music CDs onto a thumb drive and wow!!

This shows the speakers installed on a plate that will be directly begind the front grills.

Also I finished up the Holoprojectors and installed them with a bit of JB Weld.  I still have to hook up the wiring but they look nice and the Dome now has a finished look.

This is an overall shot of what R2 looks like so far without the skins.  In order to get him to a ready to show state I need to wire up the Holoprojectors, add the Power Couplers and manufacture and install the coin returns.  Although the wiring works it's temporary so I need to do a bunch of wiring work soon.

Holoprojectors

This is a painted holoprojector with the lens inserted.  Also shown is the front part of a Brinkman LED flashlight which I disassembled to use for a light.  Wires were soldered to the springs for the battery posts and the rear end of the flaslight was pried off and inserted into the back end for a clean appearance.  I have other lights I tried but many were so bright they hurt my eyes so I like the overall look of this one.

This is a completed holprojector with the light installed.  I just wrapped masking tape around the flashlight housing until it was a tight fit and pressed it in.  I know it is very low tech, but it also cheap and works just fine!!

All three holoprojectors finished and ready to install.

Back to Work

O.K. - I took a break to do some projects and get through the holidays but now its back to work time.  R2 has an appearance at the Museum of Flight in a few weeks so I need to finish the outer detail so he looks done, I can finish some of the other operating features I have planned later.

Above are some power couplers I am putting together out of resin.  I would like aluminum parts but don't have time to make them or find them so a few of the detail parts will be resin for now and hopefully aluminum later.

These are the assembled power couplers and a set of holoprojectors after washing and getting ready to paint. 

Northwest R2 Builders Day

Took some time off building to go to the Northwest R2 Builders day.  What a great time!!  We had a total of 6 R2's in various states of completion.  Left to right are Todd with his wood framed R2, beautiful polished dome and mostly finished legs.  Net is me then Chris with his finished ESB R2 that is beautifully weathered.  Chris has the JEDI control system and senna style drive frames and his R2 worked great.  Next is Carol who has only been building for a few months??!!  Great progress!  She has A&A frame and skins and a 300 Dome and it is coming along nicely.  Last is Amy who's R2 looks mostly done except for drive motors and electronics.  It has senna style drive frames mounted so it won't be long.  Good company!!

My R2 is on the left and you can easily tell I still have a lot of small external details missing.  Power couplers, center vents, coin returns, arms etc. 

Chris's R2 with dome removed. He has a very cool slide out battery tray that opens like a drawer and really excellent weathering.

Todd's dome with a super polished finish.  Also every single dome panel is hinged - just insanely nice work.

Amy showing her A&A drink tray (from Jabba's sail barge scenes).  This looks really nice with a gold hammered paint finish.  Her R2 is just about done and looks super.  Overall this was a really fun event and great to get my R2 to.

Current Status

Today I got the legs finished up and re-installed so I decided to put together what I have so far to see how everything looks.  Gosh!  this is really fun :-)  R2 actually is starting to look like something and all the parts fit.

Rear view showing the electronics panel.  The top of the panel hits the skin (just barely) so it will need some trimming, other than this all is well.

Side view showing complete legs.  Only thing the legs are missing are the lower ankle cylinder holders.

Dome Electronics

Today was spent making an electrical panel for the dome.  I used a piece of 1/4" ABS.  I really am starting to like the ABS, it looks good, cuts easily on my bandsaw, drills perfectly, and won't short out components that accidentally touch it.  I thought for a long time about how to clip in the wires coming from the slipring so they wouldn't hang up on something but finally realized that a simple slot would do the trick.  I slotted the panel and then faced the board and DB plug the opposite way so when the connector is plugged in the wire will not come out of the slot.  This is very simple and easy to hook up from underneath, very important as I plan on removing the dome for transport.

This is a view of the slipring and slot taken through the rear door.  Easy to see the slot in this view.

Close up of the board, cable hood and wire.  The slot is harder to see in this view but you can get the idea.  Later I'll drill some holes in the ABS to run small black tiewraps through to secure the wiring.