As a lead into WonderCon that starts today, the SF Chronicle wrote a great article on us local R2 Builders.  Read it online or on the front page of the Datebook section.

We’ll be at WonderCon Saturday and Sunday, and hosting another builders panel on Sunday at 12:30, room 220.

I’ve recently moved and been slowly working on a new workshop, so I thought it was about time I share some photos. It’s a much bigger (and cleaner) space than I’ve ever had, approx 13 feet square and decked out with more counter space and storage than I can currently use.

Since taking these photos I’ve added carpet, more open shelves, installed a PC so I don’t have to worry about ruining my laptop, and I’ve started to fill the shop back up with tools, which I’m itching to get back to using.

I have a dedicated electronic/solder station with everything easy to hand and a nice comfy chair, so all those long nights of soldering up LEDs should be a little easier.

The wife calls it “The Box” or “Your Box”, as in “Go to your box” – which is somewhat appropriate as I want to paint the door like the Tardis 🙂

I also brought up one of my old workbenches, it’s not as fancy as the new one’s but it’s super practical, has a lot of sentimental value and I don’t mind bashing the hell out of it.

I also had a few fellow builders over a couple of weeks ago to show off the new space and to join me in an interview with the SF Chronicle, who are hopefully going to do a piece on us for WonderCon next week.

Johnathan’s R2 dome ready to go home

Last Friday, the Bay Area R2 Builders visited the River School in Napa. Johnathan had arranged, via his wife who’s a teacher there, for us to do come in and do a little presentation on what we do, but with a strong underlying message of embracing what you love to do, overcoming peer pressure and bullying, perseverance and overcoming challenges.

Gerard decided to hide out in the crowd for part of the presentation and drive is droid around.

Here’s a short video from the Register

Thanks to Geeman Gerard, Matt and Steve for coming out. And a big thank you to Johnathan for putting together such a awesome event for the children and us.

The Napa Register was there to document our visit, and the story should hit the paper on Monday.

Steve and I did our annual appearance at Maker Faire’s Education Day. This year it was called Young Makers Day and we had an awesome turn out as usual with lots of curious children in attendance.

One of the teachers was wearing the famous Haynes R2 Repair Manual t-shirt

After about 4 hours of being bombarded with questions, the official event was over and we went to explore some of the other exhibits being setup – including this awesome retro rocket ship.

This was one of many art exhibits being setup, very 3PO but made mostly of old typewritters

Our setup was right next to the Tesla Coils, and they added the Imperial March to the routine 🙂

Related:

• Discovery Day – Washington Elementary School
• Maker Faire 2009
• Maker Faire : Intel Developer Forum
• R2 Maker Faire News Coverage
• Maker Faire – Dance Program
• Maker Faire Photos (2008)
• Maker Faire Award

As a warm up for Maker Faire, the Dad’s Club at Washington Elementary School in Burlingame put on a Discovery Day for the children, hopefully  inspiring  them about science and engineering. I was asked by the folks at Make: to bring along my Artoo to be part of the fun this year.

Here’s some photos from the afternoon, and as always there’s more photos in the gallery.

The Bay Area Maker Faire is almost upon us, and we’ll be there in force with more droids and builders than ever before. Look for us in the Fiesta Hall. We’ll also be participating in Young Makers Day on the Friday, and hosting a builders panel at 4PM on Sunday on the main stage in the Expo Hall.

RoboGames was last weekend, both Matt and I brought our droids on Saturday and I soloed the event on Sunday. As usual the place was packed with people and all things robotics, from 200lb fighting battlebots to more peaceful robots that fold your laundry.

One of the highlights for me was getting to talk with the Mech Warrior guys. They had some of the most sophisticated robots in the competition, and had developed some interesting control techniques I’d like to try on R2 sometime soon.

Here’s one of their bots traversing their mini city hunting down it’s prey – bb-guns at the ready.

These bots are huge, here’s a shot next to R2 for scale

I got to hang out with Grant Imahara from Mythbusters (and an ILM alumni). He graciously spent over an hour signing and taking photos with his fans for free. And Artoo stood by entertaining the crowd while they waited.

Helping the Mech Warriors was Fon Davis, model maker extraordinaire, also an ILM alumni, who among many other things worked on repairing/painting the original OT droids for the Prequels. He also built the mini city arena for the Mech Warriors, and had some MORAV models on show – he also graciously offered to keep and eye on my stuff – Thanks Fon 🙂

This is the PR2 robot , some of you may have seen recent videos of it on YouTube performing all sorts of complicated tasks, like folding your laundry.

As usual there was a lot of kids at the event

This little girl was very enamored with all things Artoo. Matt was very gracious and allowed her to control some of the sounds on his droid, and she followed us around for a big part of the afternoon. I’m pretty sure we have a couple of droid builders in the making with her family.

I had my fair share of scared kids but this was my only crier for the weekend – I normally get at least a couple more.

This woman appeared from nowhere to grab her chances at a photo. I’m not sure if Artoo or I was more frightened what she was going to do next

This is my most favorite shot of the weekend I found on flickr. Titled “R2R2 – A kid admires a pair of Artoos while his dad admires their makers.”. Original photo by Lenore M. Edman, www.evilmadscientist.com.

Related:

• BarBot 2010
• BarBot 2010 News Video
• RoboGames 2009
• RoboGames 2008 Report

Bonnie Burton over at the Official SW Blog did a real nice write up of our attendance at WonderCon this year, including some great photos and videos – check it out.