When I started to build my first droids I did it as therapy by not bringing my work home every evening. Looking back that was the only honest reason. Now, 8 years later I couldn’t imagine that my “modest” hobby would be giving so much back to others. Last night I had the opportunity to visit a children’s hospital. It wasn’t the first time but it was a humbling feeling of selflessly giving. I’m not writing about this to boast. I just feel so honored to be able to have the means to do this. The parents gave me permission to share this on my blog 😊
events
This past weekend was the 2nd and now annual ComicCon in Stockholm in the enormously impressive Friends Arena! This was a weekend of many memorable moments that I’ll never forget. I brought my R2 and Wall-e to this event along with fellow R2 Builders Sweden and Nordic Legions Members. It was probably the best event I’ve ever been a part of in all my past 8 years of conventioning.
From my droid perspective My R2 took over the EA Games Star Wars: Battlefront display as the centerpiece:
My Wall-e was so popular it was beyond humbling with MANY compliments and loving gestures from kids and adults alike. I’ve never felt so much love for any of my previous projects as I got for my Wall-e this past weekend. These pictures only tell part of the story. But they do show why I love to have this crazy hobby.
Wall-e performed like a real champ with only a few minor glitches. My latest tread adjustments worked awesomely. I tightened up the treads and gears to prevent the treads from derailing. This 3,5 year project with Walle has finally paid off. For those that don’t know Walle was never built for the Disney film. It was all CGI. So getting the digital Walle to work in the real physical world was the ultimate challenge.
  And throughout the weekend there was was this constant feeling of excitement whenever Walle caught a visitors eye.
On Saturday I and the R2 Builders got the chance to present our R2 and BB-8 builds to a standing room only 200+ public. It felt so awesome!!
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 Now that this event is over its time to focus on my BB-8. I have quite a few events scheduled this autumn/winter season but BB-8 completed is priority #1
As of a few hours ago my Wall-E has become an officially indoctrinated Nordic Reel Icon member. Its a charity organisation that consists of iconic film characters that do charitable events around Scandinavia. The original club was started in the UK with the same name. Now it has expanded to Scandinavia. Here’s the link to their web page: Nordic Reel Icons
Life isn’t just BB-8 building as you may have guessed. I get invited to do a lot of birthday parties with my R2 and this autumn was no exception. I did 2 kids parties with over 24 at each party. Scary? Not really. the kids loved him 🙂
As you know I do a lot of charity work when given the chance. Last week as a member of the 501st Nordic Garrison we did a short gig and raised 2000 euro ($2500) for the children’s cancer fund here in Sweden. It was a great time had by all. I was the biker scout on the far end.
Finally, a few weeks prior to that we performed with Weird Al Yankovich at Gröna Lund in Stockholm. We did the show finale to a very amused and enthusiastic public. No charity for this event but was still a lot of fun and Weird Al was awesome!