Lent Day 18 (Sunday)

Exercise: Cycling 31 miles.  Sunday typically means the Brookwood Cycling group ride.  Today was a chilly day, but I had a real good time.  After a disappointing Saturday, having a good ride with a lot of good friends was refreshing.

Verse:

Isaiah 55:7-9

New King James Version (NKJV)

⁷ Let the wicked forsake his way,
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
Let him return to the Lord,
And He will have mercy on him;
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.

⁸ “For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
⁹ “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.

Thoughts:  Today I started to work on another project that I had let sit around since the move:  my Astromech.  I had made a lot of excuses for not working on it in so long, but the root of it was fear.  I managed to build something that I was really proud of, but to move forward meant I had to first take it back apart and risk making it look worse.  This project is excessively outside of my comfort zone, so it's always been a challenge to make this droid a reality.  I haven't been a patient person in general, and model building has never been my strong suit.  Thus just getting it standing was a major accomplishment, but now I have to skin the parts and start working on the electronics and details.  Detail work can be arduous, and the electronics is going to require a fair amount of dexterity that I haven't practiced on (like soldering).  What I don't want to do is let the fear of making mistakes consume me, or drive me from attempting to complete the project.  She may never look "screen accurate", but I look forward to the day when Arfour is moving around via remote control.  

Workspace Completed

After making the decision that I really wanted to build a droid, there were three big starting points I had to deal with: Where I was going to do this work, what droid I'm building, and what materials I'm going to use. Today I got the first of these 3 mostly done, and should finish up one of the other two this week. My hope is to make the first cuts on the frame this weekend, if it's feasible.

That said, my workspace is mostly cleared off. I had a chance to go to Harbor Freight today and get the 1/4" router and other materials I knew I'd need. I put together the drill press I've had sitting around to make sure it worked (it does!) and then proceeded to put the parts away. I only spent about $76 on the additional tools I'd need, so I'm pretty happy with that.

The next big decisions is material. There are 3 main designs for the frame: Aluminum, Plywood, or High Impact Polystyrene. This is one of the biggest decisions I'm going to have to make, as the design I use will forever dominate this droid. Honestly, aluminum is out of the question, as the costs of the material are just too high for me in the making of my initial droid. That leaves Plywood, which is a more available product, but heavier, or Polystyrene which is lighter. I've been planning on a styrene build for a while now, but I think I'm starting to change my mind as I think about the lifecycle of the little guy. He'd be light with the styrene, but he wouldn't be very durable that way.

The last major decision is what astromech I'm building. I had decided that I didn't want to attempt R2-D2, as it would require more precision than I was going to be comfortable with, but I think I've figured out which one I'm going to do. The good thing is that painting is going to be so late in the project for me (frame and legs should take me until the end of the year, so it'll be when I start putting the outer layers on him that I'll be really painting). For right now, I'm focusing on making him as R4-P17, which is Obi-wan's droid in both Episode II and III. It should work out nicely, as it's still in continuity, but it's not the "most recognized" droid that way.

Droid Building

After going to Celebration V last week, I think I'm going to be inspired to do some more "hands on" work. I got to talk to some of the folks from the R2-D2 Builder's Club, and I wish I had spent more time in their area learning and seeing more. Since I only had a 1-day pass to the convention, I couldn't spend enough time in any one location to really do much.

This is going to be a very adventurous build for me, and definitely something that is going to tax me. Generally I like to "get things done", but this is a kind of project where you have to "enjoy the ride" much more than the final goal. From what I'm reading and seeing, I can do a lot of the build myself, saving a good chunk of money on the initial frame and legs. I have most of the parts I'd need for that. At best I can see this taking 6-12 months to get to a point where I'd start to do actual automation on it, which is a very long term type of project for me. Keeping the dedication and the drive for it would be challenging, but I think it would be a fun and very personally profitable project.

My goal is to slowly start up a section of my blog, if not a whole new blog, for the Droid build as I go. We'll see what develops.