Related Posts:

• WonderCon 2008 Show Report

Thought I’d post a quick show report for WonderCon and our “R2 Droid Building Basics” panel.

I’m just about recovered after a real busy few weeks. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it was just the event, but I had a droid to finish which meant lots of late nights – but isn’t that always the way.

Luckily the day of the event went pretty smooth. With some help of some friends who showed up early to help us unload, Gerard and I were in and setup by 8:30am. Doors opened to the public at 9am, and the fun started. We spent the morning zipping around the convention entertaining the crowds.

We didn’t have a booth or anything as there’s too few of us to run it, but we were luckily to have access to the 501st break room to store our gear and charge our batteries.

People love the R2’s and were surprised to see one, then realized there were two of them running around.

I think Leia couldn’t decide which one to send on the secret mission!

The first glitch in our plan was the carpets – for some reason our droids didn’t like them at all. At C4 I didn’t have any issue with any of the floors, carpeted or not, but at WonderCon it seemed to sap our batteries really quickly. We’re both using JAG drive systems and NPC motors, and were getting around 60-90 minutes of runtime on about 21Ah worth of batteries. Compared to C4, my droid is a little heavier, but only by 20lbs, and I was getting closer to 3 hours off of the same battery system. [edit – see the following post for the diagnoses/fix]

My stand by set of batteries also had a problem which made me late for the Rebel Legion photo shoot, but Gerard made it.

At 1pm we started to get ready for our panel. People were already lying up outside anxious to get a seat – which surprised me. Turn out was great, with about 80 people in attendance and lots of questions were asked. Don made a brief appearance at the end too which was great.

Our panelists of local builders were –

Gerard Fajardo
Ryan Goff
Chinh Nguyen-Duc
David Calkins
Chris James

Panel Description –

R2-D2 Droid Building Basics – Come meet local builders who will share their experiences and demonstrate working droids. Topics range from materials, tools needed, basic electronics and radio control information to make your own R2 come to life! This panel sponsored by the R2 Builders Club.

Thanks to Andy S for his slide deck which ours was based on. If anyone would like a copy of ours please let me know.

We did try and head into the dealer room in the afternoon, but it was way to busy and again the carpet was slowing us down. So we opted to stay closer to the main entrance on the tile floor. On the way out we did come across Doctor Who and a Dalek who was fascinated by our domed friends.

My photos from the event are here, and my favorite has got to be this one

There’s also some photos on the Official Star Wars Blog Flickr pool

I’m hoping to be back next year, maybe with more droids in attendance (and bigger batteries)

Related Posts:

• Battery Power Issue Resolved
• R2 Meets The Doctor
• WonderCon Photo

The WonderCon schedule is now online. Our panel is listed about half way down, unfortunately we’re up against Disney/Pixar and Beowulf

1:30-2:30 R2-D2 Droid Building Basics – Come meet local builders who will share their experiences and demonstrate working droids. Topics range from materials, tools needed, basic electronics and radio control information to make your own R2 come to life! This panel sponsored by the R2 Builders Club. Room 236/238

If you’re planning on attending, please let me know.

I vaguley remember doing a few interviews at C4, but never thought I’d see any of them. But today I found one on Youtube.

The weekend before Halloween Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos threw a two day Halloween bash, and of course I had to take R2 along for a spin.

They had a lot of children activities and of course encouraged everyone to show up in costume.

R2 was a big hit with children young and old and I had a blast running him around. For part of the afternoon I hid myself up on a balcony overlooking the main atrium and most of the children and adults alike though that he was autonomous. I a little trouble from some over excited children, but security stepped in to keep everyone in check.

The cutes thing of the day was probably the little “pepe la peu” guy running around, he was fearless and kept on sprinting toward R2. His mother though that R2 was autonomous and was worried the robot would run her child over 🙂

I probably hadn’t been to Hiller since the Pod Racer Exhibit back in 2001 and my first trooping event, but I’m hoping to go back soon.

A big thank you to the museum staff for making me feel so welcome, and to Jeff the museum Director for taking and sharing photos that are so hard to take when running R2.

[More photos]

Big thank you to Ed and his family for hosting today’s R2-CCA gathering in Elk Grove.

Weather was perfect and the company excellent as usual.

Here’s some photos from the event [more here]

We even got some building/fixing in between food and tech talk.

I was fortunate to be invite to return to Rancho Obi-Wan as part of the R2 Builders Group – Big thank you to Kevin and Michael for pulling this together 🙂

This was my second trip to Steve’s, and a lot has changed since my first visit in 2004.

We also had dinner with Don Bies that night, and I brought R2 along just in case. He was quite the hit at the restaurant. Don even got in on the act and decided to take him for a spin.

Here’s a few photos from the visit to Steve’s and there’s more in the gallery.

R2 Builders Group Shot

Steve with the George Lucas bag pupped used on the Celebration 4 opening ceremony ‘live satellite’ video

New Cantina Band Setup added since my last visit

Actual Robot Chicken Emperor Figure

I’m pretty sure this is the barn used in the R2 Beneath the Dome DVD. It’s located in the property adjacent to Ranch Obi-Wan.

Here’s a few more photos from C4. First up the group picture after the droid parade.

Here’s a video of the parade itself

Next up, me in the replica Tantive IV hallway

and finally me driving R2 around