The Big Day AKA R2 Goes to School

So today was the big day, the day I presented R2 to a panel of judges for my Senior Project. I got to school 30 min early and waited for my call time of 2:30pm.
I didn't get too much of a reaction from the panel but they might have been tired from seeing many many people before me, but the people who saw me bringing R2 in were impressed.

 Thank god it's over, I was so nervous.

I got a time of 5:58, two seconds off the limit of 6min. All and all things went good.

R2 all packed in with towels and blankets so he doesn't tip (sorry it's all squished)

R2 at school

R2 coming home (sorry it's all squished again)

R2 Drives

I went to Victor's for the 3rd time to finally get R2 moving.
We added some turn-buckles to the motor holders to keep the chains tight and the wheels away from the motors.

 photo from photo tutorial on AA motor holders.













We got R2 standing up and began working on the orangex remote control. Set it to airplane mode and tested servos to find out which channels ( forward/backward and left/right) were.

Started to test drive R2, he had a bit of a lean to the right. Victor did some "trimming' and R2 seemed to be going straighter. R2 till does lean a bit but I'll try to trim some more.

A short video of R2 driving around. VERY EXCITING!!! He's a bit wobbly but this was my first time driving him in good condition and I didn't want to dump my droid.

2013 Build day photos

So I went to build day to install the center ankle and begin wiring up R2 with the help of Victor Franco, Will Miyamoto, Mike Senna, Roy, and some other builders.

(not sure why the photos are all squished looking but I'll try and fix it. For now get a large images but sideways  and falling off the page :[  )

Parts and rails, almost got impaled

I've been busy lately and haven't been able to post much or add too many pictures. Here's the rundown....

- I got help from Victor Franco to put holes in pipes and in the rails. Also worked out some things about the center ankle over there

- Ordered a ton of parts and received 6/8. Still waiting on The HobbyKing (they're very bad with shipping and

- I put holes in (soft, according to Victor) rails to hold the center ankle. It took 15-20 min to drill onw hole with an old hand drill so if you have a drill press USE IT! YOU WILL SAVE YOURSELF SO MUCH BOREDOM AND PAIN

- Drilled holes for the rails and dropped 3/8 bolts in, used t-nuts to secure them

- Put caster on the center ankle caster holder

- Nearly impaled myself with a spade drill bit while drilling holes in the rail and having a half second loss of attention to my work. I was stupid and had on clothes with strings....that got caught and wrapped around the drill...along with my ear buds. It puled the drill within 4-6 inches of my chest. Needless to say I didn't touch the drill for a day or two after that

The wire up for R2 should take place on Saturday and/or Sunday. Build day is May 4th ( May the 4th be with you!) so expect some pictures and build updates

R2 IS STANDING! ( FIXED SHOULDER DISKS )

I got the legs done and propped R2 up on two legs. The first time I realized I had the shoulder disks too far down the legs and had to pry apart the outermost wood layer and take all the bolts out, fill the holes, make new holes, and put the shoulder disk back on and glue the leg layers.

Now he's standing again with the corrected shoulder disks. He's starting to look like a droid now!

As you may be able to tell, the shoulders come up past the frame top and this makes the dome look sunk in, like he's hunching his shoulders. This is the pre-shoulder disk fix.

R2 after the shoulder disk are fixed and standing again. Sorry for the awkward angle and bad lighting, iPod quality.

Shoulder disk and leg work

I did so work on my R2 legs and also took my mess-up frame ring to use as a dome ring to keep my dome stable.

Now onto the legs and shoulder disk...
I took my legs outside and drilled holes in the 1/2 layer facing the frame and the shoulder disks. I followed Victor Franco's tutorial to put it all together and and almost done drilling holes and putting bolts and t-nuts in. I drilled a wire hole in the leg layer and shoulder disk as well.

Victor's tutorial...  http://pw2.netcom.com/~artoodetoo/LegTutorial.pdf
His blog is really good for studying and building. 


Now R2 looks like this...a pile on my fireplace, not in it.

Painted center ankle, new pipes, eletronics

So I haven't posted too much, mainly because I've been working on R2 ( and doing homework, projects, a play in theater, and Wondercon). I painted the center ankle and will probably use blue acrylic paint to paint the small areas on R2's dome and some resin parts. Any aluminum color silver will work for R2's dome, so I have that on hand. I used 2-3 coats. It's a devil to get off your hands. By using soap, nail polish remover, and olive oil; I got it all off.

I also put my ABS skirt onto my frame. I used a sharper and longer nail to drill a hole for the small screws that I used. After two tries that yielded a crooked skirt I got it right.

A week or so ago I went with my mom to Home Depot and get some electronics and new pipes. The electrical pipe wouldn't fit into the gas pipe so we got 3/4' and 1' galvanized pipes plus flanges to match.

Some electronic related stuff...
-25ft 12-gauge wire
-30 amp circuit breaker
- 1 grounding bracket for power and ground signal distribution

haven't had time to take many pics so here's a what R2 looked like a few days ago....