Here’s some highlights from Maker Faire, the complete album can be found here.

Friday’s Education Day

Saturday

Sunday

Wall-E who?

Jedi or Jawa? You decide.

Danger R2-D2!!

Artoo at the Star Wars Button Making workshop with Bonnie Burton

Big thanks to Vern from Nuts and Volts Magazine for providing copies of Servo and Nuts and volts Magazines where the Builders Club was recent features.

Maker Faire is this weekend and I’ve had a fun week getting ready. I’ve cleaned up and fixed a bunch of stuff that have been bugging me, and added a few new features.

Today, Friday is Education Day so I’ll be heading out in about an hour with Steve for a day of special programming targeted at school students.

On Saturday, in addition to the R2 Builders (now dubbed R2 Makers for the weekend), there will be a few other Star Wars related exhibits at the faire.

Bonnie Burton from LucasFilm will be presenting Star Wars Crafts: Marble Magnets

and my friend Richard Jacobsen, prop maker extraordinaire, will be showing you how to Build Your Own Vacuum Forming Machine. So if you’ve wondered how those cool Stormtrooper costumers are made – this is the thing to see.

Matthew Carauddo will be showing off his Crystal Focus LED “lightsaber” Project.

We’ll be based in the main Expo Hall (exhibit #1075), but watch for us through the faire.

For the full schedule click here.

I’m definitely getting into the fun part of the project. I spent part of the evening trying to add a servo to the front holo projector. It was a little more tricky than I thought it was going to be. I’d seen photos and vaguely remember a setup on one of the tables at C4, but until tonight I didn’t understood the nuances of the angles and forces need to move something with a servo, so it was frustrating and fun at the same time.

Most people seem to use the same basic method to move pie panels, doors, holo projectors etc. And that’s to convert servo rotation into a linear movement using a push rod attached to the servo horn.

I’d bought some random mini servos from Tower Hobbies a while ago (Hi-Tec HS-55), and a push rod/linkage assembly from ebay. Problem was the servo was too small to fit the rod attachments. I managed to improvise and this is what I finally came up with

Please ignore the kinks in the rod, it really should be straight, but I’d tried to copy what I’d seen at C4 and got it totally wrong 😀

If I was to do this again I’d probably skip the pre-made assemble and make something in acrylic and parts from the local hardware store.

I also created a short video to summaries and demo the new setup.

As I explain in the video it’s not perfect, and I need to affix the servo more permantely to the dome rather than using velcro and I’m not entirely confident the linkage to the back of the HP will last very long.

The good news the Hi-Tec servo is definitely powerful enough to move the HP and will probably work for the pie panels as well.

I also need to decide if I’m going to add some code to my micro-controller to automate random movement.

See Also:

• Slip Ring Servo Test

Here’s a videos I just found on YouTube of our appearance at WonderCon this year.

Artoo, myself and members of the Rebel Legion’s Endor Base visited Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital yesterday.

It was a great day and Artoo was a big hit with the children and adults alike. This is definitely something I want to do again.

Unfortunately we don’t have many photos as camera weren’t allowed around the children for privacy, but we did take this quick shot at the end of the afternoon.

Here’s a short video from RoboGames last year. My droid pops up in a few spots.

I’m hoping to be there again this year.

Thanks Vern for sharing.

I can’t believe it’s been a month since WonderCon — I’ve done very little on Artoo since, which as been a nice break, but I feel guilty that I still need to go back and post on work I’d done last month.

The good news is, as a result of us being at WonderCon there’s at least one new builder who’s jumped head first into building. What’s even better he only lives a few miles away from me – Welcome to the club Steve!

Today I did get together with Gerard to talk droid and strip my Artoo back down ready to implement my revised battery system. I was hoping to get a few more local builders over, but being easter it was hard to arrange at such short notice.

The easter bunny also brought me newer bigger batteries. I’m going to replace the smaller 7Ah batteries with a single 12V 18Ah battery. Thanks Gerard!

Now to try and get the battery to fit and still be easily removed.

I’m probably going to position the new battery just off-center with a second smaller standby battery for the RoboteQ to the right. Based on the height of the battery and the clearance needed to get it in and out, the new holder/harness will probably much shorter than my original.

I’m also even more convinced that I should loose the fuse block, which works well and even has a battery voltage read-out, but it’s somewhat overkill and gets in the way of battery removal. I could try putting it deeper into the droid, but that then defeats the purpose of keeping for the voltage display.

In closing here’s shot of my frame minus the skins

I really like this photo I found of Gerard and I at WonderCon

WC2008-088, originally uploaded by Barry Brown.

Related Posts:

• WonderCon 2008 Show Report