So who else added B2EMO to their list?

[Dyne]

I've known for awhile that I want B2EMO from Andor on my list.    But to nobody's surprise, some people are allegedly already working on the modeling (probably on Facebook where I'll never see it).

I haven't actually started working on anything, just pondering what would be involved.  In the interests of having discussion outside of Facebook, here are a few things we know. You can see some of this in the video that Matt Denton tweeted.  The rest of my knowledge comes from the first three episodes of the show (no real spoilers).

• B2EMO is a fully functional droid in the show (unlike, say, BB-8 in Force Awakens).  Anything you see him doing is something he can actually do.
  
• He uses Mecanum wheels.  You can even see him strafing slightly in episode 1 (as he enters the ship during his first scene) and when Cassian is talking to him later.
  
• His head has 3 axes of rotation (pitch, roll, yaw).  The rotation is apparently 360 degrees like R2 (or at least 180 in either direction)
  
• He has a small zapper like R2's that is mounted in his head on the corner near the larger eye.
  
• The little wheel pods are attached to the body via short arms that are capable of shifting forward-backward relative to the body, which gives the droid a longer footprint.  My understanding is that mecanum wheels rely on the center of gravity staying, well, in the center, so this may be present to let it drive reliably when the body is lifted.
  
• His body is capable of tilting side-to-side and leaning front to back relative to the wheel pods.  To be precise, there appears to be a servo arm that connects to each pod offset from the center of rotation, so each corner can change angle independently.
  
• The body lifting seems to behave somewhat like a spring or accordion (there's a bit of "bounce" to the travel) and it's not all-or-nothing
  
• The cylindrical grey sections that are visible when the droid's body is extended can rotate independently
  
• Each red section appears to lift to expose the grey section below it (rather than the grey section moving up and carrying the red section above it), which makes sense given the core rotation
  
• The rectangular panel section on the red body segment below the head can tilt upward to open, and the one on the red segment below that tilts downward, revealing a wedge shaped dispenser for small items.  It's possible but not clear if the items that are dispensed are being kept in the rotating central section, though there do appear to be panels on this core that do line up with the red ones.  There is a matching pair of panels on each of the four sides of the droid, and they presumably function identically.
  

It is possible that he has more capabilities that aren't shown until later episodes.



There are other droids in Andor, but I was amused by ... this.  I'm doubtful that it's actually a droid, since it's static and looks like it's meant to be, but it definitely has a strong resemblance to an R-Series Astromech.

[Kurt Zimmerman]

I've known for awhile that I want B2EMO from Andor on my list.    But to nobody's surprise, some people are allegedly already working on the modeling (probably on Facebook where I'll never see it).

I haven't actually started working on anything, just pondering what would be involved.  In the interests of having discussion outside of Facebook, here are a few things we know.  You can see some of this in the video that Matt Denton tweeted.  The rest of my knowledge comes from the first three episodes of the show (no real spoilers).

• B2EMO is a fully functional droid in the show (unlike, say, BB-8 in Force Awakens).  Anything you see him doing is something he can actually do.
  
• He uses Mecanum wheels.  You can even see him strafing slightly in episode 1 (as he enters the ship during his first scene) and when Cassian is talking to him later.
  
• His head has 3 axes of rotation (pitch, roll, yaw).  The rotation is apparently 360 degrees like R2 (or at least 180 in either direction)
  
• He has a small zapper like R2's that is mounted in his head on the corner near the larger eye.
  
• The little wheel pods are attached to the body via short arms that are capable of shifting forward-backward relative to the body, which gives the droid a longer footprint.  My understanding is that mecanum wheels rely on the center of gravity staying, well, in the center, so this may be present to let it drive reliably when the body is lifted.
  
• His body is capable of tilting side-to-side and leaning front to back relative to the wheel pods.  To be precise, there appears to be a servo arm that connects to each pod offset from the center of rotation, so each corner can change angle independently.
  
• The body lifting seems to behave somewhat like a spring or accordion (there's a bit of "bounce" to the travel) and it's not all-or-nothing
  
• The cylindrical grey sections that are visible when the droid's body is extended can rotate independently
  
• Each red section appears to lift to expose the grey section below it (rather than the grey section moving up and carrying the red section above it), which makes sense given the core rotation
  
• The rectangular panel section on the red body segment below the head can tilt upward to open, and the one on the red segment below that tilts downward, revealing a wedge shaped dispenser for small items.  It's possible but not clear if the items that are dispensed are being kept in the rotating central section, though there do appear to be panels on this core that do line up with the red ones.  There is a matching pair of panels on each of the four sides of the droid, and they presumably function identically.
  

It is possible that he has more capabilities that aren't shown until later episodes.



There are other droids in Andor, but I was amused by ... this.  I'm doubtful that it's actually a droid, since it's static and looks like it's meant to be, but it definitely has a strong resemblance to an R-Series Astromech.

The cylindrical grey section you mentioned actually look like four rotating drums each, with the side drums rotating opposite the front/back drums, with the corners not rotating at all. There are a couple of scenes that seemed to work this way. Further examination may be required...

[savagecreature]

He's on my list for sure. As usual I'll do my own plans. That's a big part of why I build droids in the first place.
I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with!

[Dyne]

The cylindrical grey section you mentioned actually look like four rotating drums each, with the side drums rotating opposite the front/back drums, with the corners not rotating at all. There are a couple of scenes that seemed to work this way. Further examination may be required...

Does it? Do you mean two drums at each level, one nested inside the other, with the outer one having openings so the inner is visible?

I don't think I noticed anything like that. Hmm.

[Dyne]

James Bruton has started designing his own B2EMO and is already pretty far along with a prototype chassis/foot mechanism. As usual, he'll eventually start releasing the files on his github but has a few things to work out first.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=zpHlCWpQh-I

He also tweeted some stills here.


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[kresty]

Michael Baddeley's working on stuff (via his Patreon). And there's a FB group. Some reference photos there. I guess we should copy some of those to reference here.

[kresty]

He's on my list for sure.  As usual I'll do my own plans. That's a big part of why I build droids in the first place.
I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with!

Pit Droids? ;-)

[kresty]

He's somewhere on my list. That might take a while.

[Dyne]

He's somewhere on my list.  That might take a while.

Because I don't have enough partially completed droids, I'm planning on B2-EMO as my next build.

Speedrunning both design and construction of LD-F1 (and 99-99) from the ground up in three months was a bit of an exhausting slog, so I want to work from something more solid for a change of pace.  

I know of Michael's work, but that mostly seemed to be a non-mechanical scale model last I checked and I didn't know his plans or timeline for refining it , though I see from the newest video on his YouTube channel that he's already started the process since then.  I like some of what he's done, but some of it I don't (his frame doesn't allow the little hinged doors to open properly, for example, plus I don't like the servo horn on top of the head, and there's no accommodation for a slip ring for powering his eye illumination and the potential periscope or whatever that I mention in the next post)

The club falls under "if it only exists on Facebook, it doesn't exist" for me.

I know Tim Hebel is also working on his own build (he has videos on his YouTube channel, TheEebel that probably go with facebook posts I'll never see), but I don't think he's released the files for R-Duo yet, so I wouldn't expect B2-EMO anytime soon.

Therefore, my build will likely be based on James's design as the foundation once the files are far enough along. However, given my distressingly consistent habit of looking at a well-trodden path and instantly steering my projects into the thickets off to one side, I doubt it'll end up an exact copy.

The reason I'm putting Bee ahead of the rest of my list is not the novelty factor.  It's because I was already bitten by the Mecanum bug at Dragon Con due to Acathla's scrubber droid and Gil the RX pilot droid and was considering doing a scrubber myself.  Once Andor came out shortly after and I saw him in action (I wasn't paying much attention to pre-release media because speedrun), I realized that he'd not only scratch that itch, but would also have a lot in common with my beloved Astromechs.

I'm a little tired of always building small, hard-to-work-on droids that most people overlook or won't recognize.  I need a hero droid.  (I'm holding out for a hero droid til the end of the night.)  Judging by reactions, Bee feels like the most significant new non-humanoid droid since BB-8 in TFA.  Plus he just looks like a fun droid for both builder and audience.

I'll have to sort out a storage solution, as I'm already tripping over LD-F1 on a daily basis, but I needed to sort that out anyway for that very reason, as well as making room to progress on my R-series and Treadwell builds.

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[Dyne]

Oh, continuing the list of observations from my original post, one thing I noticed on the Droid Factory figure is that there's a slightly raised circle at the left front corner of the recessed square on top of his head. It made me wonder if he has some sort of periscope or other gadget there that simply hasn't been shown off yet.

It doesn't appear to be an artifact of the injection molding process, but I haven't seen many good photos or video of that area that confirm whether it's actually present on the droid or not (could be an invented detail). Some of the videos seem to indicate it isn't there, but it could just be blending in very well. I'll have to go back and look through the episodes to see if there's any footage showing it.