R2 makes a brief appearance half way thru.

[video link]

Related:

• BarBot 2010
• RoboGames 2009
• RoboGames 2008 Report

I made a start on my ROTJ drinks tray, it’s based on the A&A plastic kit.

I still need to add some detail, finish filling/sanding and apply the final gold paint, but it’s almost done. There was a lot of Bondo work to hide the layer lines on the glued parts.

We used it on Matt’s R2 at the BarBot event the other night. We had problems with glasses flying off while driving around, so I’ll may need to find some small glasses to bring along next time that will fit in the recesses.

I also made a start on a drinks dispenser, I was being overly ambitious trying to get something done for the event, but got a lot of the detail sketched out on how I’ll build it.

Plan right now is to use a sucker cup thing to hold it on the dome, instead of opening the top hatch, which would be hard for me to re-work and open on the current dome. I may make a fake hatch to attach somehow.

Another problem with the drinks dispenser is that on a 3 legged droid the whole dome tips back the assembly, compared to on the original that was on a 2 legged vertical R2. So some adjusting will be needed to get the setup to work w/o leaning too much into the drinks tray.

Related:

BarBot 2010 – DNA Lounge SF

Matt and I took his droid to BarBot 2010 at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco last night.

BarBot is a celebration of cocktail culture and man-machine interface. Get a drink from an actual robot. Chat up a snarky electronic bartender. Listen to some graceful tunes being played by robotic music makers. And, after downing your sixth martini, you can finally admit that it’s the geeks who shall inherit the earth.

The event is hosted by Dave Calkins and Simone Davalos, fellow R2 Builders and the organizers of RoboGames.

Here’s Matt with his R2 serving some drinks

Here’s some of the bar tending Robots, both big and small, and made from all sorts of creative things like Lego and even triple action breast pumps.

This one one of the more fun interactive bots where you had to arm wrestle for your drink

More photos here

Or on Youtube

See Also:

• California Museum : R2D2

A couple of weeks ago Matt Mccormick and I headed up to The California Museum in Sacramento to check out a Lucasfilm R2-D2 on display.

At first we thought that it was part of the “Out of this World” / Paul Allen touring collection, but it turned out that it’s part of a separate exhibit to commemorating George Lucas’ entry into The California Hall of Fame at the end of last year.

Until Matt brought it to my attention I had no clue that there was currently an Artoo on display so close to home, so a trip was definitely on the cards. At first, while discussing it with Matt we had thought it maybe a replica because some had reported that it had some strange “features” and was part of the Paul Allen collection, but a quick search of some pictures on the RPF showed that it was almost certainly from the Lucasfilm archive and had some LFL lineage to it.

Matt and I were all over the droid taking as many photos as we could – alas no flashes were allowed making the job hard, and the glass didn’t help

After seeing it in person, I can confirm that it’s the same Artoo from the Magic of Myth (MoM) exhibit which was first shown in San Francisco back in the 90’s, and before that at the Lucasfilm/ILM Model Shop Exhibits at the Marin County Fair which started back in 1988. After seeing some photos of the same droid in the Madrid SW Exhibit last summer, I’d confirmed with Don Bies that this droid has an original aluminum Kenny Baker body with a fiberglass dome, and was assembled originally for the Marin County Fair Exhibit and has been on tour ever since.

In addition to the Artoo, there’s a 3PO on display as well as some Indiana Jones props, original Lucas scripts and some token Clone Wars concept art.

I must have looked at the photos from the MoM a thousand times but never noticed some of it’s oddities until I saw it in person.

• He’s shorter in stature than normal due to shortened legs that have been pushed into the ankles.
• Because of the shortened legs, the body is sitting on the battery boxes (which helps with stability on display.)
• Dome appears to be aluminum, but is painted fiberglass.
• Paint is very good, especially the white, so parts were probably repainted at some point.
• Leg to body hubs thinner than normal, which pulls the legs tight to the body.
• Shoulder Horseshoes seem a bit too thin as well.
• Shoulder Buttons stick out a lot more than I remember, but this maybe due to the thin horseshoes.
• Round inside edge of the horseshoes have no detail/ridges.
• There’s a silver plate on top of the lower half circle where the hoses enter the battery boxes.
• Dome doesn’t look like it will rotate as it’s flat on the body.
• Utility Arms are thin sheet metal.

Here’s samples of my photos, the rest can be found in the gallery here, and Matt’s write up can be found here and his photos are here.

I also shot some video and will try and post it in the next couple of days.

Here’s some photos from this years Halloween. We didn’t go far, and just step up on the drive way with Artoo, with his very own candy holder and Vader standing guard in the backfround.

We quickly went thru our candy stash, but the kids didn’t seem to mind that we had run out.

We got our far share of vaders, clones and jedi

and even the odd robot (or 3PO wanna be)

The town is pretty small, maybe 2,000 people, but we were totally swamped with people most of the evening. My wife took this shot looking town on the drive way from the house.

One of my favorite costumes was this guy who came as the elderly gentleman from the movie “UP!”, house and balloons and all in tow.

and this was probably the cutest trick-or-treater of the evening

More photos.

Related:

• Halloween 2008
• Halloween at Hiller Aviation Museum 2008
• Halloween 2007 at Hiller Aviation

Here’s some more photos of the Mystery Box, I’m sure most of you guessed it was to store a dome.

It was made by Matt Mccormick for our trip down to R2LA this past weekend. Thanks Matt!

Related:

• Mystery Box

A couple of people have asked about the replacement 2.5″ wheels I got for my front foot setup back in May from California Caster.

The soft rubber wheels are made by Darnell-Rose, and product number/markings on them show “Darnell Corp X-6 2 1-2 Calf.”. Unfortunately, I can’t find my original receipt nor the wheel in Darnell’s catalog or California Caster’s website. If I find it I’ll try and remember to update this post, but I think if you call up and say X-6 2- 1-2, you be okay.

oh! and a point of clarification, I’m still using the original Proctor Glove / Arrow Hardware caster assembly

Left: Original Proctor Glove wheel – shaved down to 2.5″
Middle: New Darnell wheel
Right: Full Proctor Glove 3″ caster