Barrels of L3-G0 Fun!

I skipped posting for "day 5" because it was sort of short due to my birthday activities, and because what was built (parts of the body) looked a lot like what you've already seen.  So days 5 & 6 are combined.

The back is done, but, as mentioned, it's pretty much like what you saw before, but a little bigger.

 

However, the front is also mostly done (except for the front vents).  The utility arms are probably the least detailed part on L3-G0, "the plan" is to improve L3-G0 over time.  Adding arms seemed like it'd take a while to figure out, without adding much.  Eventually we'll probably have doors and other stuff, and maybe even utility arms, but the first goal is just to get him built!  It's Lego, so we can update him later as needed. 

The kittens have a different plan for L3-G0.  They think he makes a nifty cat house or cat toy.  Cats love boxes and I guess they decided his body is a box.  The missing vent is apparently a perfect kitten door.  (I confess to using the streamer to get him to pose for the camera, but the kittens were the ones that started climbing into, and over, the body.  The also think the loose Lego bricks are great toys.)

 

The day 5/6 time lapse video 

Happy Birthday

There was an interruption of the construction and posting because of my (Shawn's) birthday.  A few more body panels were done, those'll get posted later.  Thanks everyone for the party and the presents!!!

The party was Star Wars L3-G0 themed for some reason, Lara got perfect cake!!!  (Apparently getting someone to print L3-G0) was a ton of work, but I really liked it.

 

And I got Brainz!!!!  L3-G0 will probably appreciate this.  Granted it's going to need a *lot* of help to make an EV3 control L3-G0, but it seems like a Lego Astromech's brain should be a Lego computer. 

 

And that's pretty much it for the birthday photos.  We gave the camera to our teenage son, so most of the rest of the Shawn's birthday party photos are Darius' selfies :)

Filling Holes

Yippee, most of the rest of the bricks arrived (there are still a couple where we were short for various reasons, but that won't stop us).

So this post is "filling holes" in the parts we already built, along with some better photos once the right parts are in place

First I added the little gray ring on the tippy top of the dome, only one brick, but a pretty big detail

 

Next was filling in mostly the missing tiles on the body.  Some of the white tiles for the panel outlines were missing, as well as tiles on the vents and some of the coin return slopes.

 

Detail of the side vent, notice that the blue parts are recessed.

The quarter of the body that fits together so far (3 other panels are done, but they're the same or mirrors of these and don't directly connect).

 



Next, the legs.  I really like the detail on the leg strut and it's angled square top.  Also the complex curves where the notches are, and at the top of the booster cover under where the shoulder hub will go.  We were missing the little slope parts and some tiles to make this all work.

 

Top of strut in booster cover:

Notches recessed in a curve in the booster cover:

 

Complex curves at the top of the booster cover:

The center foot was also missing a couple square plates on one side, but the photo isn't really different than before, so I didn't include it.  Also the side "footprints" were also missing square plates, but they're not very far along, so I'll photograph them when I do the rest.

 

Lastly, I fixed the colors around the bottom edge of the Holoprojectors and removed the shim plates, so they look a lot better:

Next up is probably more of the body, probably starting with the rest of the back since the two remaining back panels would allow me to connect 8 of the 12 body panels.

Time lapse of filling holes and the resulting parts

Building on Day 4 - Starting the Body!

The parts we needed for the body arrived!!!  We're still waiting on ~1500 of the original ordered parts (a little bit of rework has caused us to order a little more since then).  So there're still some gaps for parts.  Considering it's 15K+ parts, we've done great missing 10% of the bricks!

The body is 12 panels, and I started on six of the easiest.  Mostly because they're either identical pairs or mirrors.  So that's about half of the body!  (just the easy half).  3 of them are contiguous, the next two holes in this photo need an additional panel, and the last two go next to each other (despite the gap in the photo).  You can see the missing bricks :(

 



Three are next to each other, so we can see how they fit.  If you can get over the missing bricks, you can get an idea of the 3-D detail.  I'll probably take some close ups when we get the other bricks filled in.

And an idea of the scale, Lara posing with the partial body.

 

Time lapse video for day 4

(All 3 cats interrupted the video, they like playing with the loose bricks.  Additionally there's.... horses?)

Moved the youtube videos

I know my links/videos are embedded, but we're moving the youtube stuff to it's own L3-G0 channel, http://youtube.com/myL3G0

Apparently throwing in all the Lego and Sci-Fi stuff scared away all our subscribers (yes, both of them) that just wanted cat and disaster videos.  Since a half million views are of the storm and only 150 for L3-G0, it seemed prudent to separate them.  (Feel free to get L3-G0 up to that level, I won't mind).

Likes and subscribing are good too :)

Building Session Three

Well, something about having to work, so I didn't get daily updates.  Instead the bits are interrupted and built over a few days.

We still don't have all of the parts, so there's a few holes to fill in the results, but there's a good start on the skirt (under the body), the very top of the dome (I thought I had all the parts, but it's missing a little gray ring), and the legs.

Worked on the skirt first (daughter realized it's his butt, what do you expect from a teenager?)  Unfortunately we're missing a bunch of the "wing" pieces to round out the edges :(

It's also a bit "wobbly" because the hinges let it bend, but that'll get fixed later.  Even so, I think it's looking pretty good.  (Photos are with the skirt upside down).



I thought I had all of the parts for the tippy top of the dome (above the pie plates), so I figured I'd whip that out in about 10 seconds.  Unfortunately I'm still waiting for a little ring on the very top.  (Hopefully tomorrow).  I was able to use the flying saucer or whatever they're called parts for this part of the dome.  The angles and sizes matched surprisingly well for that.

More successfully I worked on the legs.  Again, some parts are missing, but I got further, including some complicated stuff.  Obviously they're incomplete, but I'm reasonably happy with the detail.

 

One thing I realized looking at a photo of a real R2 is that my legs seem a bit tall.  I was expecting them to attach to the plate on top of the ankle, but the distance between the notch and the bottom seems longer than on the real photo.

 

Coincidentally, the R2 builders group had a thread today that mentioned "standard" and "extended" legs.  I wonder if I followed plans for "extended"?  Clearly there's some measuring in my future to make sure I get them the right height.

 

Top is missing some of the slopes to make the recess rounded (it's a pretty complex curve), but here's the top so far.  Hopefully the slopes come today:

Time Lapse of Phase 3 Building:

On to Day 2...

Day 2 building L3-G0.  Mostly finished the center foot, except a few parts are missing (still on order), which is part of why the corner edges don't fit as nice as they eventually will. 

Also the center ankle cylinders (back one's also missing some parts).  And a tiny bit of the dome, which was missing a lot of parts so I decided to come back to that later.  The dome edge will need a little rework, and it's got me wondering a bit about how I'm going to fit it to my bearing.

There's a Day 2 Time Lapse Video too...