Inquisitive Inferno

I was trying to troubleshoot L3-G0's sprayer a while back and Inferno the Cat decided to help out. Unfortunately L3-G0's shoulder doesn't support a 24lb/11kg cat:

His adventure caused a little damage:

Inferno has a small album on Flickr.

Brickcon 2015!

Subtitle: how to be completely out-of-sync since I haven't even posted about (much) earlier events....  Oh well.

This weekend was Brickcon 2015, one of the biggest Lego conventions around.  Tons of "well known" Lego artists show stuff there, and we've been going most recent years.  We represented the R2-D2 Builder's Club, showing off the banner we picked up at Star Wars Celebration Anaheim.


L3-G0 and MCK-Y, Lego Droids at BrickCon 2015

MCK-Y the Mouse Droid and I had tons of fun entertaining folks 

Entertaining kids at BrickCon

On Saturday we had some excitement when the fire alarm went off.  Apparently some mom had her kiddo in one of those backpack things, and was leaning against the wall to rest.  When she went to leave, the kid was apparently really curious about this thing attached to the wall and tried to hang on.
Lara was wrangling L3-G0 at the time and was wondering what kind of whacky noise she'd triggered!

 

MCK-Y also took it upon himself to go entertain some of the folks in the crowd outside waiting to get tickets (there's often a line, particularly in the morning).  Unfortunately, he also tried to test the strength of this wall by backing into it!
The line curved around this shallow fountain, so MCK-Y decided to show off his off-road skillz!



Lego Mouse Droid driving through fountain!

Here are some of the other MOCs (My Own Creation, 'cept that these other people's creations, it's a Lego Builder acronym for things they make).

Cool Lighthouse, 2nd place in People's Choice



Nifty Lego Mosaic, Our Neighbor won an Mosaic award



These computers were also our neighbors, Look at those Lego cases!

On Sunday we were privileged to receive the BrickCon 2015 People's Choice Award.  What a cool honor!  We're glad you liked L3-G0 and MCK-Y, and thanks to everyone who voted for us.  We go to the cons because like showing off the droids for the crowds, especially when folks are excited and curious, but we don't mind winning prizes :)  There were tons of other great and deserving Lego Creations at the show, so we're thrilled and humbled that you chose us.

L3-G0 with People's Choice Award

L3-G0 trying the People's Choice Trophy on as a hat!

Now maybe I'll get around to posting some of the things that happened earlier in the year...

 

Can Lego Bricks be Jinxed?

L3-G0 went to a small school's kid's dance last night. Everyone had a great time, and he danced with some of the kids.

Most of the kids at the school knew L3-G0 already, but they were happy that he could join in. Given the environment, there was a lot of touching and stuff, and eventually there was a small accident with his LEFT shoulder, which had to be repaired. And made me wonder if bricks can be cursed?

Is it possible to have unlucky bricks? Cursed? Jinxed? Did I run afoul of a Voodoo Doctor somewhere?

You see, there's a kind of Déjà vu here...

On the completed L3-G0's first outing, to Emerald City Comicon (ECCC), there was a bit of a mishap.  He was driving along and the escalator reached it's rail out to smash him in the right shoulder.  (I'm sure that's what happened, I would have never driven that close to the rail!)  Since the escalator was moving, bricks when flying everywhere.  Huge gasp from the crowd.  Very impressive.  We even got censured by security and prohibited from the escalator for some reason.

Then a bit later we took L3-G0 out to a friend's bookstore for Star Wars Day.  May the Fourth be With You!  Unfortunately there was an earthquake which opened a gap in the sidewalk, tripping L3-G0 and causing a faceplant, along with the right shoulder.  (I'm sure it was an earthquake, this is Seattle after all.  I'm sure it wasn't something so mundane as me trying to outrun the rain and not looking at the crack!)

(Ironically this is one of my favorite pictures of him.  I just love the Tuskan Raider's expression - it was he who invited me, and this is before the event I was supposed to participate in).
 

Wrecked Lego R2-D2

You don't get it, I know.  How is he cursed if those were the right shoulder, but the party broke the left.  Patience young Padawan, I'm getting there...

Next time the curse struck was at Rose City Comicon (RCCC, kinda like ECCC, but smaller).  Things were going well, but one of the vendors shoved his table out into his shoulder as I turned the corner (I'm sure that's what happened, I mean he looked nice and all, and the table was loaded with stuff so it looked like it couldn't possibly move, but there's no way I was inept enough to drive down a 50 foot path and smash into a table on one side).

You guessed it, the right shoulder was destroyed AGAIN!!!!  No pix, sorry.  Of course we're getting better at fixing the shoulder by now.

Mishap #4 was back at that accursed book store.  This time it was an endcap full of books that attacked.  Darth Vader was there and may have used the Dark Side to yank L3-G0 into the books.  This time we were picking right shoulder bricks out from between the books.

We had uneventful trips to Children's and some schools and work and stuff, but then it was time for Star Wars Celebration, Anaheim.  Which I know I still need to blog about, but until then he has some pix on facebook.

On the way down we stopped in Endor (Redwoods park) to take a cool photograph.  Unfortunately Lara stumbled.  I'm sure she was falling away from R2, but at the last instant she jumped towards him and smashed down on the... wait for it... right shoulder!  (You could've guessed by now.  The fifth time we smashed his right shoulder).  Fortunately a couple kind schoolteachers helped get the bricks out of the dirt and a while later we were ready for the pictures.


L3-G0 smashed shoulder on Endor (Redwood's National Park)

After several stops (including LEGOLAND) we reached Celebration!  And there was a lot of activity, running around, launching lightsabers and generally showing off, which all went pretty smoothly.

Buttons Front!

R2 Builders have had huge debates and discussions about "Buttons Front" or "Buttons Back".  You see, at the top of his legs, each of Artoo's shoulder has 2 buttons on one side and a hydraulic bar on the other side.  Unfortunately the legs are kind of interchangeable, so in some scenes and movies, they're flipped, sometimes buttons are front, sometimes buttons are back.

At Celebration we met Lee and Oliver, a couple great fellow builders who built R2-D2 for Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens!  (Way to go guys, he looks great!)  Anyway, building Artoo for the movie they had to make a decision, and the decided "Buttons Front."

That's all well and good, however L3-G0 was built "Buttons Back".  I don't remember all of my reasoning, but thought about flipping the shoulders.  On day three, we were hanging out by the Sandcrawler, and someone teased us that Oliver had said "Buttons Front". 

I was like "fine", and ripped the shoulders off and flipped them, putting the left shoulder on the right side and the left on the right.  I think I surprised him, most builders are pretty picky about the buttons decision.  They're symmetrical so it was pretty easy and I'd been thinking about it anyway.  I thought it looked a little funny at first, but now I don't notice.

What do Buttons have to do with this story?

Now that you ask, an interesting thing happened.  A little bit after I swapped the shoulders we had what I call "The Great Parking of the Droids".  We all got together for a group photo.  As you can imagine, it took forever, but it was tons of fun.  Notice the buttons front in the picture.

The Great Parking of the Droids, L3-G0 and R2-KT

Of course there was lots of maneuvering and people getting their droids into place. During all of that activity someone was a little unbalanced and reached for... wait for it.... Can you guess?  L3-G0's LEFT shoulder.  Small pile of bricks on the floor, fortunately not too bad of a fix.

Got that?  His right shoulder was smashed 5 times, then we flipped the bricks around and the next time it was the left shoulder, SAME BRICKS!  They must be cursed.

Which brings us back to the dance.  No picture, but there was a small oops and L3-G0's left shoulder fell apart onto the dance floor.  Now it's twice since moving the bricks to the other side.

So Can Lego Bricks be Jinxed?

L3-G0 is made out of Lego, and all sorts of things happen, his feet have to be snapped back together quite often as that what sticks out the most.  His head gets dizzy and bricks wiggle loose.  The dog's stepped on his head.  We've fried electronics, etc, etc.  But smashed shoulders is one of the most annoying problems and he's had his shoulders destroyed a total of 7 times now.  It's been different shoulders now, but the same bricks all seven times!

The totally random odds of having two shoulders and smashing the same shoulder bricks 7 times in a row is 1 in 128.  Kind of between the odds of rolling double sixes on 2 dice and triple sixes on 3 dice.  I use to think I was just leading with the right shoulder somehow, but now???  I thought it was bad when it was 4 in a row.

I think he's got some cursed bricks.  Maybe they were bought from a seller that runs a Voodoo shop on the side or something.  Somehow his bricks have been jinxed.  Maybe it's just the main ones that connect to the rest of the leg.  Maybe it's the whole thing.  At least I know which side is L3-G0's unlucky one!

R2-D2 in Star Trek Redshirt Costume

Well, L3-G0 decided to crash a Star Trek convention.  And, of course if you're gonna mix canons like that, your gonna need a costume:


Lego R2-D2 wearing Star Trek Redshirt

Our daughter has been collecting signatures, so we wanted to see some of the stars, and Lara thought it would be a good idea to bring L3-G0.  I wasn't so sure, but she had the idea for the red shirt.  Of course we put off actually making the costume 'til the last minute.  Anyway it turned out pretty fun.

Artoo wasn't the only cosplayer there:


R2-D2 with Star Trek Cosplay

Of course, there were scarier things than Klingons:


Borg with Artoo Red Shirt

Artoo did get to meet some of the Star Trek talent.  Some of them left early and missed him, but Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis, Denise Crosby and John De Lancie all got a chance to say hi to him.  They also had some talks that were pretty enjoyable with funny anecdotes, their an entertaining crowd.  (I guess that's their job.)

Marina was really funny.  She saw R2 in his red shirt and whipped out her phone... a Blackberry... asking if she could tweet a picture.  There was lots of tapping and phone wrangling, but finally she held it out to take a picture... Whoops, another one... And another.  Finally she apparently has a picture and taps a bunch more (all the while insisting she loves her Blackberry).  Viola, she announces that she's done it and posted the pix to twitter.

Curious about this 5 minute picture taking of course I check twitter when we move on:

The universes collide!!!! R2D2 in a starfleet shirt!!!
— Marina Sirtis (@Marina_Sirtis) December 14, 2014

Hilarious, all that and no photo :)

Later in the day the talent had no visitors, so we went back and let her know about the faux pas.  It didn't take as long this time:

OK OK I know I'm dumb. Here's the pic of R2D2 pic.twitter.com/PPiGFOHRoT
— Marina Sirtis (@Marina_Sirtis) December 15, 2014

I know she likes that phone, but maybe she wants one with a better camera, just sayin'.  Anyway, thanks a ton to Marina for providing us with such a fun story and memories.

Another hilarious bit was when the talent first arrived.  Apparently they had been told to bring photos, but Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes apparently hadn't been listening.  Marina was like "men".  Brent was griping and grouching, digging around his bag and pulled out the only shot he could find, all bent and torn, turning around and asking the fans if they'd buy that.  (Someone did scrounge up some stills for them eventually.)

In short, we had as much fun as Lara predicted, and he was better received than I expected, considering that we had the wrong genre.  I guess we're all just geeks. 



L3-G0 (in costume) saying hi to famous people

Brickcon 2013 L3-G0 Setup

L3-G0 Made it to Brickcon!!!

Whew, that was way more complicated that I expected.  Especially since the new! lights blew up at 1:30 AM. 

But he made it, here's a quick clip of L3-G0 doing his thing and some of the other MOCs at Brickcon 2013 (Oct 6/7).

 

Robotics

Right now L3-G0 is using FOUR computers:

 

• Perhaps counterintuitively, a Lego EV3 Mindstorms to make his head spin
• An Arduino for the blinking lights.
• A Microsoft Surface for the sound effects (looping audio track)
• And a Surface Pro that programmed the Arduino and the EV3, at the moment needed to trigger the EV3 (start button's buried), and was using it to tune the dome program for the conference today and tomorrow.

L3-G0 is Ready for Brickcon!

Yippee!  All ready for Brickcon 2013 (October 5-6 at the Seattle Center)  He's not going to have feet at Brickcon because that's going to be another very huge undertaking.

 

I didn't have a ton of time to post, so a lot happened.  The dome sits on a bearing, so that had to be mounted and bolted on.  The dome also basically fell apart and had to be rebuilt... better... stronger... faster... (yes faster, and it didn't even cost me Six Million Dollars).

 

Nikita helped test the dome:



 

The bearing and dome base rest on a support that is made from the hinges that hold the panels together.  There are two motors for the Lego EV3 Mindstorms (this is the largest Mindstorms robot I've built by far).  Two because they push a lot better than they pull.  The wheels will rest on the inside of the bearing, attached to the dome of L3-G0.  On the right, near L3-G0's blue front you can see a color/light sensor.  The light sensor is used so the EV3 knows when he's facing forward.

 



And here it is with the dome base on.  You can see that the plates on the base of the dome ring are bolted to the aluminum bearing.  The bearing has a plastic support ring on top of it, also to keep it from dragging the dome bottom on the static side of the bearing.

 

The bottom of the bearing is mounted to 1/4" plywood, seen here from inside the body, before the dome ring was installed on top. 

 

 The dome itself has been strengthened, and stays together much better now.

 

Also finally got the shoulders finished.  Lots of bits weren't perfectly aligned in the Lego Digital Designer (LDD), and LDD also doesn't show you how to attach 12 pieces from different directions at the same time!  Getting everything to snap together right was a bit challenging.



I like the detail on the shoulders, and also I like the "Under Shoulder Detail" (R2 Builders Club Lingo):

 

Timelapse Video on YouTube

 

I show his dome spinning at the end.  I'll have a better video of that later, but here's what I have so far:

Building the 2nd Dome Panel Row

Hosik, a Korean foreign exchange student helped out this time, thanks Hosik!



Hosik and Darius also helped make sure the cat (devil cat?) got some cameos.

It's sort-of days 11-12. Sort of because sometimes I only get an hour or two, so I try to get those into a "day" unit, whatever that is. This part of the dome's being really hard because of the multiple curves. At least the plan is mostly working, however the incomplete sections are fairly fragile. I also took time to build up some plates where the dome will rest on the Lazy Suzan bearing. Since the dome was already partially built, I did that from the bottom.

Also got the eye done!  The eye was challenging because the shapes don't align very well to actual brick sizes and shapes.

 

The logic display also looks particularly nice with a flashlight behind it.  This was fairly challenging to get all of the panels to fit next to each other and provide enough structure for the panels above and below.  It was rebuilt several times.

 

Its starting to get there.  I'm so focused on the detail that I miss the big picture sometimes.  A few times L3-G0's gotten my skin crawling when I walk into the room after stepping away.  Then it's like "who put that R2-D2 in my kitchen?"



Time Lapse Video for the Middle Dome Layer

 

First row of dome panels

Day "10", some of the first layer of dome panels. 

The dome is roughly 12-sided, but the 1st layer of dome panels has extra segments between each of the 12 sides (so it's an irregular 24-sided curvy thing).  At the top we eventually end up with 6 sides, but everything's based on the original 12 sides.

Somehow I'm missing the big round piece that I'd intended for the back, I'm sure it's around somewhere.  Otherwise the trickiest parts were the "logic displays".  I did the front ones, but the longer one is just a hole at the moment.

This section gave me a chance to attach two of the Holoprojectors!  The first parts built are finally attached.

Another Time Lapse Video

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

L3-G0, the full size Lego R2-D2.

We've made a few Lego models, such as the Lego Disney Wonder cruise ship and a Lego Space Needle, and it's about time to do something new, but all of our ideas were pretty lame.  So in the back of our minds there was some thinking about "what could we build next?" 

Then we went to Emerald City Comicon and saw some of the wonderful Astromechs there.  Of course I wanted to build one, but quickly realized it'd be a ton of effort, cost a lot, and I wasn't terribly familiar with the materials.

It should've been obvious, but "gee, I wanna build a droid" sat in one part of my brain while "I wonder what I'll build next in Lego" sat in another part.  Eventually we came to the obvious conclusion:  "I'll build an L3-G0".  Don't know why it took so long.

Normally I grab a bunch of bricks and start building, then get more bricks, but for various reasons I started toying around with some of the sections in Lego Digital Designer to see if some of my ideas were practical.  Of course, once I started, I forgot to stop.

Now we have a 15,000 piece model pretty much figured out, and all we need are about 12K more bricks!  (Well, and some sort of frame, and some motors, and some electronics).  We're hoping that at least part of L3-G0 will be done for BrickCon in October.  Feel free to send us your spare bricks ;-)

There are some parts that will undoubtedly need changed from the LDD model, and he's going to need an internal frame of aluminum or wood or something, but it should be do-able.

A couple more screenshots of the drawing:

The model is based on plans from the R2-D2 Builder's Club (Astromech.net)  Of course brick isn't as finely detailed as manufactured parts, but he should be "pretty close" to spec.  He'll probably be about 100 pounds.  Eventually we'd like more functionality, but for a start we're looking at getting him to move and beep in time for Emerald City Comicon (ECCC) 2014.  We'd love to take him other places too, anyone know how to get him to Celebration in one piece?

We'll post more as the project goes.

Bricks acquired so far:  15900/16000.