Littlebits - Star Wars Droid Inventor Kit - pt 9 (2019)

22.10.19
Lid update.....R5 now has a 'Bad Motivator':

Printed off the updated R5 lid, which now has the correct orientation 'antenna' and also the 'bad motivator'.

The antenna's front circle needed to be facing the front in relation to the pie panel opening and the bad motivator positions.

I've uploaded a short video onto my You Tube account, it can also be found on my Instagram page.

UPDATE: 12,3,2020
The files have now been uploaded to Thingiverse

Littlebits - Star Wars Droid Inventor Kit - pt 7 (2019)

Last week my youngest daughter got out the Littlebits R2-D2. She had been doing some work in school and it re-ignited her imagination with electronics.

So back in work I re-opened the 3D files I had drawn up for the R5-D4 dome and got back on tinkering with the final design from earlier this year. Click here for part 6.

With our new works 3D printer and my new design, I had more confidence that this would print/work second time around.

With the print time at just over 12 hours, and all the settings set to standard, due to my limited knowledge of them lol.

This picture shows the support structure.

Once happy with everything, I set the print to start just before I left work.

With my fingers crossed for a successful print come the morning......

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.......The morning came and YES, success! I've not felt this good about a 3D print in a long time lol, especially after the previous dome print fail. Here's the pictures before removing from the print bed.

The print quality is fantastic! Even when removing the supports, the finish is still great.

I just need to finish removing all the support material and see how well the 'lid' fits the dome.

Once everything is sorted, I'll post up this print on my Thingiverse account.

I'll post up more next week.......

Littlebits - Star Wars Droid Inventor Kit - pt 4 The Build

So last Sunday afternoon, I managed to get my two together long enough for me to give them the R2 Inventor building kit.

My youngest daughter was more enthralled then my Son (just turned a teenager lol), but both sat down to first start downloading the app, and to then get out all the components and start arguing about who was going to do what lol.

My youngest daughter follows more after me for being 'creative' etc which is great, so she was the one who took charge, following the simple and straight forward instructions, via the App. (PS, my Son has other talent's, like being an international football star, lol)

She was soon playing all the sound bites that were available. This was great and very responsive.

As a parent the one big thing about buying something that requires batteries......is when the item actually COMES with them!! A defo MAJOR plus point! As this kit comes with it's own 9v battery! So no hunting round the house looking for one.

The circuit boards are extremely well made and visually to a high standard! Most impressive! And the 'only one way' connection of the magnetic contacts makes assembly simple and easy to use.

All the components clip onto the main internal frame easily and can be removed the same way, without difficulty.

And it wasn't long before the body and legs, which all just clip together, (my Son was allowed to do this lol) were assembled and our new droid was moving and beeping.

Feature 1: The recorded message.
You can record your own message and send it to the Droid, via the App, for it to replay on your button pressing command. She thought this was amazing! (tho it's not an instantaneous upload to the Droid), but is pretty neat.

In order to move onto the next stage you need to 'complete each mission'. This involved dis-assembling the droid (by following the App instructions) we didn't actually do this. Only then can you move onto the other build 'missions' (this is because they are locked).

But before she could do this, she wanted to start applying the stickers. She did ask, but I said she could do whatever colour scheme she wanted. So red/blue and black it was.

Blue pie panels, but the rest of the dome and body are a mix of the others lol.

I can't remember now what she named him 😃

The other 'missions' involve dis-assembling the components and re-arranging them to be able to operate the 'waving arm' (from the front body slot), this uses the centre foot stearing motor, 'dome rotation', using the main drive motor etc. This makes sense, even tho as an actual Astormech builder, you have it in you to ask 'why didn't it come with extra motors etc lol'.

My kids are on half term break from school, so I've only been told what they've been up to with the droid while I've been at work, so I'll do another update once the other 'missions' have been assembled and tested out.

More Blog updates to come......

Littlebits - Star Wars Droid Inventor Kit - pt 3

Printing started Tuesday morning on the new R5 dome....

But the PC 'shut down', (over night printing) so it didn't get to finish. Will look at the support structure and possibly re-design it into the build to save time and filament.

8 hours, the time taken is mostly due to the support structure, which we hadn't considered as the program doesn't actually show what the support structure will look like, neither does it give you a print time, which might also indicate it's going to take forever to print! :D

Looks like it maybe next week now, till the printer is 'free' to try again.

Littlebits - Star Wars Droid Inventor Kit - pt 2

With loads of people & Littlebits on Instagram, posting up pics of creations for their droids, I thought I needed something 'special' to modify the droid for the kids.

The plan was this weekend to get the kids to build it, but as always plans changed so hopefully, this weekend coming......plus I'll have the dome done by then as well.

There can be only one.....as Colin MacLeod once said, lol (Highlander film peeps), modification that this droid needs.......so I drew up an R5-D4 dome.

I did it simple, (tho it now doesn't look simple in this pic), but picked out his main recognisable details lol, three big 'eyes', neck detail and gave him a mini antenna. This is version 4 attempt, couldn't help myself lol.

Will post up pics once printed.....