starting work on the periscope…

Yes, the next big addition to my artoo is going to be the periscope. Artoo has 2 lifting devices in the dome that I know of and well I may put them both in, not sure yet. Before I can make the periscope I have to design the lifting mechanism. Here’s my design idea….it’s partly borrowed from other R2 builders like Calvin and Chris. All of the parts are inexpensive as well as easy to find in a home depot or DIY store. I’m using a draw-slide  mechanism as the main component and simple but effective geared hobby motor attached to a pulley. This is my first test. seems its going to be fine with some tweaking.

its all in the details…

I have been having one issue with my artoo that I just haven’t had time to fix, until now. The center foot has always been slightly pointed upwards in front. Only I and other perfections really noticed it or even cared. Usually R2 builders want a pair of swivel wheels or ball casters in there, but because I had the issue of it pointing upward in front one of the wheels in the center foot never touched the ground. As a result I had to temporally remove one of them because it just looked silly, lol. I knew it would take a little extra time to adjust because there wasn’t really any room to get that foot level. Now, after a few days of redesigning where the joint and center foot meet it’s done. You can perhaps see the before and after difference. It was mostly noticeable when I would put artoo in reverse…

happy birthday my little artoo…

Not sure if droids (robots) have birthdays but exactly 1 year ago today I started to build my artoo. My first blog post was written the same time a year ago. WOW!!! I read my first post a few days ago to kind of reflect over how this all started. It was pretty cool reading, lol. And just recently experiencing my first Con with artoo as well as a few scenes in an up and coming Star Wars Fan Movie and wow what a movie. All of this has just been an incredable experience and it keeps getting better…overwhelming is putting it mildly. BUT….its good to know that I have an artoo and one more in the works souly because of a few great people with support and understanding… my family as well as my building friends Calvin, Brenda, Jason and not to forget the R2 Builders Club and Astromech Net. None of these names is greater than the other, they all are “just” the best in all catagories. There are alot more people to thank for differnet reasons, but the list is too long…Cheers everyone and a humble thanks!

behind the scenes with my artoo..

This weekend was the first time my artoo was involved in a movie project, Star Wars: Threads of Destiny. It was an interesting experience for me and my little buddy artoo. To my liking he didn’t preform like artoo did for George Lucas in the original movies, thank god. There were no exploding domes nor falling over issues, lol. The Threads of Destiny is in the post production stage and the producer/director wanted to give the film a little extra feeling of the Star Wars genre and artoo did his part. Yours truly even got a small cameo roll. No great Oscar material but it was fun. The video below shows a little behind the scenes footage. enjoy

The movie will be released in may 2009 and the trailer can be seen here: Threads of Destiny