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

Here’s some photos from this years RoboGames, which is held annual in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Big thanks to Matt Mccormick and his me with Artoo at the end of the day.

Notice the thing around my neck? I won the Gold medal in the art bot category.

In the pits

More photos here.

Related:

• Servo Magazine RoboGames 2008 Coverage
• RoboGames 2008 – Day 1 Highlights
• RoboGames 2008 Report
• RoboGames 2007

If your name is not Matt, can you guess what this is?

And no, it’s not a hat box and I’m sure you’ve guessed by now 🙂

Answer: Dome Travel Box

Previous Mystery Box

Some photos from this years Maker Faire

Education Day

Maker Party

Saturday/Sunday

Chris E’s droid with mine next to a Tesla electric sports car.

Chris E fixing his drive train

Lego R2!

SW Craft with Bonnie Burton

Maker Awards – I think we got 4 or 5 this year.

Other random robots, the first was a wearable Robbie – guy does amazing work and is local – alas I lost his card.

Related:

• Maker Faire : Intel Developer Forum
• R2 Maker Faire News Coverage
• Maker Faire – Dance Program
• Maker Faire Photos (2008)
• Maker Faire Award

Maker Faire is just a day away, and I’ve had a busy time getting ready. This is probably my favorite event of the year, and we will have a good showing, with 4 droids and 6 builders in attendance. Bonnie Burton from SW.com will also be there running a kids workshop on Star Wars Puppet Craft.

Over the long Memorial Day weekend I stripped Artoo down for some long needed repairs and upgrades I’d been putting off.

I’ve replaced the center foot with the a new one from JAG with the taller skirt. Here’s a comparison shot with the new foot on the right

Sadly, with extra tapper of the foot skirt, the “Special” 3 inch Ace casters are too big and had to be re-worked. To be honest, they were a bit of a squeeze in the old foot, so I was on the hunt for some nice 2.5″ casters! I searched and searched locally, but couldn’t find anything suitable, I had three options, order something online, hack what I had, or just install one caster.

Long story short, I tried the last option, and even went as far as creating a new mounting bracket for one 3″ caster, but when I was done I then had to redo my ankle locks as there was now a backward tipping as well as the forward tipping. Hard to explain, but bottom inline I needed to redo my locks, which meant drilling more holes in the ankle that I wasn’t prepared to do….. back to the drawing board.

Because of time, and on Gerard’s suggestion, I resorted to trimming down the 3″ casters I already had. I mounted them in my drill press and filled them down.  It took forever, there was rubber dust everywhere, and it’s not something I want to do again.

What I’ve also realized is that never trust a label, the original casters were labeled 3 inches, but they were closer to 2 7/8th. Here’s a before and after comparison

After some finegaling, and making a new mounting plate,  I got them installed in the new foot – nice and level, unlike when I had the 3″ wheels.

Getting the right caster for the center foot can be tricky, it’s a balancing acts. You want the biggest wheel you can get fit, but because space is tight, the deeper you recess them to get things level the less space you have for a bigger wheel.

oh! and just as I was done with trimming the wheels, I went back and looked at one of the online stores I’d found earlier in the weekend, and what do I find – they’re LOCAL, or almost. They’re called California Caster and based in San Francisco, and had 100’s if not 1000’s of caster products in stock. I just had to make a trip up there. This was just a small selection of casters they had on display

Even though my new center foot was running again, I picked up these replacement 2.5″ wheel for the next round of maintenance.

I also replaced the radar eye with one I picked up from Dave Shaw many moons ago, luckily the old hole placement didn’t screw anything up. It doesn’t look too much different, and the wife thinks I’m crazy for swapping it out. I had the hardest time matching the Kryder blue, and it’s way to clean, but none of my panels match anyway 🙂

I can’t remember exactly what else I worked on, this was my droid on Sunday morning, all stripped down.

There’s been a long list of things I wanted to re-work, like shortening and re-routing some wires that were bugging me, to tweaking the front vents. I almost added servos to the utility arms, but that would require me filling them down and repaint – which I didn’t have time for.

But I did hinge manage to hing some doors in the body. I made some little aluminum brackets to help mount the servos to the frame

I know I worked on more stuff for Makers, but I can’t remember exactly what 🙂

oh! I remember, I’ve also been working on a small wireless controller based on a iPAQ Mobile phone, but more on that later.

Related:

• Proctor Glove Wheel Casters
• New Larger Casters and Angles
• Caster Fix and Test
• New Wheel Casters
• Fitting Casters for R2’s Center Foot