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05-15-2019, 06:19 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-15-2019, 08:01 AM by Dyne.
Edit Reason: redundant phrase
)
I posted about this on the Mouse builder's club forum, but I know Rebeldroids was intended to cover all of the non-Astromech droids, so I'm also posting a thread about it here. Besides, this has the advantage of being the only droid forum that I can browse when I'm not logged in.
At Dragon Con 2018, I finally had Artie Deco running and spent a lot of time in the Droid Play Area and hanging around my fellow builders. I came back fired up to get a proper Star Wars droid running before the 2019 convention, but with no time (Dragon Con usually signals the end of most of my time for the rest of the year as I get busy with Halloween and other holidays. I managed to post an update to my Treadwell build logg. I also did some CAD work on a scale BB unit (BB-6). But that was about it before I had to put things aside until after New Years. I did purchase a Sphero R2 and BB-9E after the con, and received a Spinmaster BB-8 for Christmas.
Right after New Years, my schedule got massively disrupted, torpedoing my energy levels, my motivation, my sanity ... and my plans.
At the end of March, I managed to attend another con. Though exhausted, I had a lot of fun and was reminded that I needed to get started on something in order to have any hope of meeting my goal in less than five months. I also debated customizing my Spinmaster's identity (and restoring his sound/lights in puppeteering mode) by making an alternate dome to swap to. But since I like having BB-8, I would be limited to using the body sphere as-is.
At some point last month, I decided that the quickest solution was to build a (3/4 scale) MSE-6, with SHADOW and a mostly 3d printed chassis that I'd design (because I find the notion of buying one for dozens of monies while having a 3d printer sitting around gathering dust to be slightly irksome). The MSE-6 shell would be made of EVA foam, most likely.
"Wait... MSE-6? Didn't you put MSE-4 in the title?"
Yes. I quickly realized that designing my own chassis required research into things I haven't dealt much with, like suspensions and gearing. Nothing I foresee having a big problem with, but it will require time to iterate on my designs and generally botch things up.
On top of that, about two weeks after the con, Seth Kelly tweeted about prepping his Nurse Droid build (which I hadn't been aware he'd started) for Celebration. After Celebration, I learned that it was a modified Spinmaster ... and remembered my notions of replacing the dome on my own Spinmaster. This got me started on the idea of going for a full conversion. So I obtained a second, used Spinmaster and began work on BB-5M.
BB-5M isn't what this thread is about, but it explains why I'm lowering the priority of the MSE-6 build. I'm not abandoning the idea, I'm just unlikely to get it done by Dragon Con.
So as a warmup, I am building an MSE-4. I recently saw the thread on the Mouse Droid club forum about the 3D printed tiny mouse droid at Celebration, and that sounded like fun.
I've always liked the idea of building an MSE-4 ... I explicitly compared my scaled-down MSE-6 to it, and one of the ideas I pondered early last year was trying for some sort of flocking algorithm and making a swarm of the things that travel around as a group. But I'm resisting the urge to do crazy things like that. This is a relatively simple R/C car build based on the same car that was used for the 3D printed droid that was in that thread.
This thread will be about my MSE-4. As and when I work on the 3/4 scale MSE-6, I'll probably post here about it rather than making a separate thread. I'll call it out when I do that.
At Dragon Con 2018, I finally had Artie Deco running and spent a lot of time in the Droid Play Area and hanging around my fellow builders. I came back fired up to get a proper Star Wars droid running before the 2019 convention, but with no time (Dragon Con usually signals the end of most of my time for the rest of the year as I get busy with Halloween and other holidays. I managed to post an update to my Treadwell build logg. I also did some CAD work on a scale BB unit (BB-6). But that was about it before I had to put things aside until after New Years. I did purchase a Sphero R2 and BB-9E after the con, and received a Spinmaster BB-8 for Christmas.
Right after New Years, my schedule got massively disrupted, torpedoing my energy levels, my motivation, my sanity ... and my plans.
At the end of March, I managed to attend another con. Though exhausted, I had a lot of fun and was reminded that I needed to get started on something in order to have any hope of meeting my goal in less than five months. I also debated customizing my Spinmaster's identity (and restoring his sound/lights in puppeteering mode) by making an alternate dome to swap to. But since I like having BB-8, I would be limited to using the body sphere as-is.
At some point last month, I decided that the quickest solution was to build a (3/4 scale) MSE-6, with SHADOW and a mostly 3d printed chassis that I'd design (because I find the notion of buying one for dozens of monies while having a 3d printer sitting around gathering dust to be slightly irksome). The MSE-6 shell would be made of EVA foam, most likely.
"Wait... MSE-6? Didn't you put MSE-4 in the title?"
Yes. I quickly realized that designing my own chassis required research into things I haven't dealt much with, like suspensions and gearing. Nothing I foresee having a big problem with, but it will require time to iterate on my designs and generally botch things up.
On top of that, about two weeks after the con, Seth Kelly tweeted about prepping his Nurse Droid build (which I hadn't been aware he'd started) for Celebration. After Celebration, I learned that it was a modified Spinmaster ... and remembered my notions of replacing the dome on my own Spinmaster. This got me started on the idea of going for a full conversion. So I obtained a second, used Spinmaster and began work on BB-5M.
BB-5M isn't what this thread is about, but it explains why I'm lowering the priority of the MSE-6 build. I'm not abandoning the idea, I'm just unlikely to get it done by Dragon Con.
So as a warmup, I am building an MSE-4. I recently saw the thread on the Mouse Droid club forum about the 3D printed tiny mouse droid at Celebration, and that sounded like fun.
I've always liked the idea of building an MSE-4 ... I explicitly compared my scaled-down MSE-6 to it, and one of the ideas I pondered early last year was trying for some sort of flocking algorithm and making a swarm of the things that travel around as a group. But I'm resisting the urge to do crazy things like that. This is a relatively simple R/C car build based on the same car that was used for the 3D printed droid that was in that thread.
This thread will be about my MSE-4. As and when I work on the 3/4 scale MSE-6, I'll probably post here about it rather than making a separate thread. I'll call it out when I do that.