After a long break....

After a long break, i finally had a chance to get a bit more work done on R2.  During this time i focused mainly on the leg assembly.  I started out by taking the blueprints provided through the Astromech R2D2 Builders Club and printed them off on 2 banner sized posters at my local office max.  Carefully measuring each dimension i was able to get the two pieces to line up perfectly!  Once i had this done i used carbon copy paper to transfer the blueprints onto some poster board and later on to a piece of 1/4th " birch plywood to use as a template later on.  Due to having a bit of a time constraint when i got my birch wood after going to multiple Home Depots and Lowes' to find decent pieces of wood... i only had time to cut each piece down to size for easy transport.  While building the legs i plan to follow the process laid out by Victor Franco.

http://pw2.netcom.com/~artoodetoo/LegTutorial.pdf

~Jacob

Dome Painted

I took my first crack at paining the dome today.  I have not had much experience using spray paint before so my work came out not meeting my expectations.  Using Eastwood MRO Chrome Galvanizing Coating spray paint in our University's painting booth i put the first coat of paint on the dome.  As you can see i was holding the can to close to the project and need to touch up on a few spots, hopefully by sanding down a few spots and 1-2 more coats of paint i could get away with incorporating it into my "weathering".

~Jacob

Broken Parts

i decided to try my luck using a Makerbot instead of our schools professional 3D printer, in the end it was not the best choice.  All the parts using the blue plastic were made using the Makerbot 2.0 and as you can see in the picture below, will not be used in my project.

~Jacob

Misc Updates

Well this one is not as formal as the rest of my meeting posts but here are some the of the Misc things that have been worked on between all these gaps.

LED budget display

after finding a youtube video of a R2D2 Builders Group member using a led belt buckle when designing his logical displays i decided to copy his idea from the front logic displays.  This takes away one less thing to worry about when doing the electrical components and programming later on.

3D Printed Parts

A lot of work has been done.  Between July and August all the C.A.D models have been finished and all that remains is the printing process.  We are able to print off one part every 3 days or so so this might take awhile.  so far we have the coin slots, side vents and pocket vents printed off (as well as the CPU arms from earlier)

Paint

While no painting has been done yet, we did some paint testing using plastic cups (thanks to the people on R2D2 Builders Group for the suggestions) and decided to use Eastwood Almost Chrome for our silver/grey colors on the dome and for our blue we are using Dupli-Color Sonic Blue Pearl BFM0378.

In the mean time i have been helping out teaching some more S.T.E.M classes involving soldering/programing and some good old Lego Mindstorms.  Speaking of Lego Mindstorms, as the F.I.R.S.T First Technical Challenge comes along this year i might be a little busy being a mentor for a local highschool.

~Jacob

Meeting #8
August 31st 2013
Duration: 30 Minutes
Attendance: Jacob, Nate

It was the start of the school year, i had multiple friends ask me to join this project over the summer.  I though why not have an introductory meeting for all those wanting to join, try to catch them up to speed on why i am doing this project and what has been done and what still needs to be done.  After a day of planning, writing everything up, and 2 hours of pre-meeting set up....Only my good friend Nate shows up who already knows what is going on.  So much for that idea.

Anyways i will post my Gant Chart as well as a few other project statements here shortly for reference.


Note: August was a very layed back month in terms of the project for me.  I spent the month taking a class at the university as well as teaching some S.T.E.M classes each week to local middle school and high school students.  Needless to say they all loved R2D2.

~Jacob

Meeting #7
07/27-28/2013
Duration: 180 Minutes each day
Attendance: Jacob, Nate

During this meeting we finished up the rockler bearing that we started two weeks ago.  After finally getting our Teflon spray and we once again cleaned out the bearing, sprayed on a coat of Teflon and put the bearing back together. During this process we took advantage of the bearing being apart and we marked/drilled/countersunk the necessary holes in the frame as well as the bearing.  That Sunday the 28th we went to our local hardware store to pick up the washers, bolts and nuts needed to mount our bearing.  After a dumb oversight of getting the wrong heads on the bolts by myself, we finally got everything mounted.  The bearing was much more quiet and spun more freely making close to a full revolution before coming to a stop.

~Jacob

*pictures to come soon*

Glued Together

Meeting #6
July 20th 2013
Duration: 300-420 Minutes
Attendance: Jacob

After

After having the frame for a long period of time, I finally came to the conclusion that it was finally time to glue all the pieces together.  This was a much bigger project that i had first anticipated.  Taking well over 4-5 hours to take apart and reassemble and glue each piece took quiet some time.  especially since i made sure no glue was showing at the end and constantly cleaning up little mistakes.  I wish i could say everything went according to plan but later on i found out i glued a piece in at a small angle which would prevent me from skining R2 later on.  I put this issue off for now and just called it a day.  I will use a heat gun to remelt the glue and re-position the piece later.

~Jacob

*Pictures to come soon*