The World of Fan-Built Droids: A Conversation with a V8 Builder

As I sit down to write this article, I find myself reflecting on my own experiences as a fan-built droid enthusiast. I've spent countless hours building and tinkering with various mechanical systems, from simple LED lights to complex robotic arms. However, I must admit that one of the most rewarding experiences I've had was when I decided to take on the project of creating a V8 droid.

I started by building all the necessary components, including the table and lights for display purposes. However, as I delved deeper into the project, I realized that I didn't have the luxury of filming each step as I went along. This meant that I had to backtrack and re-evaluate my design, which was a daunting task. Nevertheless, I persevered, driven by my passion for creating something truly unique.

One of the challenges I faced was balancing the need for accuracy with the desire to showcase the finished product. As a fan-built droid enthusiast, I've seen many incredible designs come together, each one pushing the boundaries of what's possible. However, I must admit that it can be frustrating when I stumble upon something amazing and realize that it's not something I could have built myself.

To overcome this hurdle, I've learned to appreciate the work of other fan builders, particularly those who specialize in mechanical drive systems. There's something truly remarkable about seeing how others approach a problem or challenge, often coming up with innovative solutions that I wouldn't have thought of myself. The BB-8 builders group is a prime example of this, with its dedicated community of enthusiasts sharing their knowledge and expertise.

I've had the pleasure of collaborating with some of these talented individuals, providing information and feedback on various projects. However, I must admit that it's not always easy to balance the need for secrecy with the desire to share my findings. With so many NDA's in place, it can be difficult to know who to trust or what information is truly safe to share.

Despite these challenges, I firmly believe that fan-built droids have the power to inspire and educate. By showcasing the work of others, we can demonstrate the creativity and ingenuity that exists within our community. Whether it's through film, photography, or in-person displays, there's no denying the impact that these projects can have.

In fact, I've had the privilege of working with Lucasfilm on several occasions, including a recent project where I was asked to build a V8 droid for display purposes. While I couldn't reveal too much about the final product, I did get to see some behind-the-scenes footage, which gave me a glimpse into the magic that happens when creativity meets technology.

One of the most surprising moments came when I realized that the finished product was not just a showcase of my own skills but also a testament to the dedication and hard work of many others within our community. From the fan builders who contributed their expertise to the engineers at Lucasfilm, it's clear that we're all part of something much bigger than ourselves.

So, what can we learn from this experience? For me, it's been about embracing the power of collaboration and the importance of giving back to the community. By sharing our knowledge and expertise, we can create a more positive and inclusive environment where everyone feels encouraged to contribute.

In conclusion, I want to express my gratitude to everyone involved in making this conversation possible. It's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you, and I hope that our discussion has inspired others to pick up their tools and start building. Who knows? Maybe one day we'll be able to showcase our creations on a grand scale, inspiring a new generation of fan-built droid enthusiasts. Until then, let's keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible and celebrating the incredible work that's being done within our community.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwelcome to still entitled the AdamSavage project I'm norm I'm Adam and I'mMatt Denton Matt it's good to see you inthe shop finally it's nice to be youwe've been trying to meet for a longtime yep and you have actually been toSan Francisco and been to the cave and Ihappen to be out of town on a gig atthat very moment so this is the secondtry indeed yeah why I'm bad and wepassed I think we crossed paths at theMaker Faires well then we in the BayArea start yeah yeah early this year yepah well a little bit about like it's alittle bit a background for people whomay or may not know who you are butyou're you you're in the States in townfor d23 yep or some big announcement butyou work with Lucasfilm correct for themost recent Star Wars films yes indeedthe last films yes five I'm gonna countthem up yeah five films obviously one ofthem's not come out yet but oh rightokay yeah engineering hands yeah so mybackground is animatronics for films I'ma freelancer and yes for the last fiveyears I've worked on all Star Warsproductions my speciality is the controlsystems and electronics for animatroniccreatures and droidswhich is great freaking awesome it'slike we've gone to the source yeah we'retalking about like a BBA yes seriouslyis that's what you were at events likethe 23r and premieres you are operatingoffstage correct a bb-8I know I might remember when I guess theforce awakens was first announced oh allthe details and that robot came outpeople are like how could this bebecause we just assumed looking at thetrailer well that can't work yeah wellwe did as well in a way to be honestwhen we started the film force awakensactually my counterpart Josh who's likethe mechanical engineer on bb-8 hecalled me up and said I'm working onproject I can't tell you what it is ofcourse I guess what it is straight awayand I'm working on a new character andit's a really tricky drive system couldyou come and have a look and so actuallywhen I went in at that pointwe would go through the script andlooking at the script and saying it'sgood working sans got to work on grassall that kind of thing we ruled out areal bb-8 because we you know we haveILM we have yeah the digital artiststhat can remove rods exactly where theyare so we built seven versions of bb-8two of them were radio-controlled trikesthey had stabilizer wheels whichactually are really cool there's one ofthe nicest droids are built just becauseof the it's got like an a commandturning system it's three wheel drive soall the drives got a run at the rightrates and doesn't you know it'sbeautiful but and we have puppets whenwe had one called a wiggler whichdoesn't roll around but just sits on thespot and moves about just like the KennyBaker r2 that has the sneakers in rightexactly so you can just sit there and doits thing and it's digitally clean rightbecause you can bury the plate in thesand or whatever but then we've got tothe end of the film we were alwaysthinking about you know a droid thatcould actually red carpet as we call ityou know we thought well what are theygonna do when you get to a premiere wecan't have like Brian the puppeteerpushing the puppet one along the biggreen one sticking out yes yeah or theones with the wheels or a bitdisappointing you know or they you can'tbelieve it but so Josh and myself kindof went well maybe we should you knowhave a go at it it could be possiblethere are rolling droids around orrolling robots around we gotta justfigure out it's got to get the head onhow to control it so you did the wholefirst film without it being correct thatis fascinating so we I'm sure I have aquestion here which is I'm curious aswhen you developed the drive system forit for real you had you had previouslyin making all the different versions ofit had ascertained the way in which itwould navigate the way in which inertiawould cause it to settle and stop andI'm curious if there are any aspects ofthe puppeteering that you realized lateryou were wrong about when you had itactually driving by itselfyeah you can't mate you can't doeverything that the puppet one can doshuttle II but one of the things that Ibuilt into the trikes theradio-controlled ones is I pick up theacceleration and deceleration curvesfrom the software and I apply it to thehead motion for example right where Itake off the headin and stops and comes with it so I hadall that reciprocal II what I waswondering right so and you get that as Icall it free animation because you'reactually pulling off of realacceleration and dig syllabus yeah andthat reads really it's perfect and andit felt really right to me physics thatyou understand but at the same time Iknow that sometimes when you at when youposit how something might move and thenyou do it for real like it might bequite different or there might be newdance so and with and with the directcarpet one I'll usually dip the headdown as I take off or you can feed it inand have it automatic you know there'sseveral ways to do it interest newthoughactually I'll come back to that I meanokay so see yeah the red carpet one wewere saying right yeah I think we couldbuild it I think it's doable let's havea crack so I think we built it in fiveweeks we did a five week build after theoriginal red carpet one which I had nopaint on it was a gray sphere with areally ratty head but it looked prettygood and so we did a little video and wefilmed this video and we sent it to JJand Kathleen Kennedy I believe NealScanlan my boss sent it on to them and Ithink we called it where's Brianwho's the puppeteer and one of my mainbut we've got Brian and David are twoproperties so there's no green suit andall that kind of thing and it came wejust said you know would you beinterested in this if you want to chucksome more money at it we can make itlook like bb-8we got a resounding yes you know yescarry on here's a bit more money and thedeadline was Anaheim celebration which Ithink was April and 2015 yeah and Ithink we had about six weeks in to getit looking like bb-8 and making thealterations we wanted to make nice Wowso yeah so that that was the red carpetthe birth of the mark one red carpet butinteresting the interesting part aboutthat so we just come back from d23Anaheim and that's where this wholething started everyone thought that wasgonna be CG they'd seen the one rollingthrough the desert and then we're onstage and we know what's coming out nextand all that and we'd done a row onerehearsal the night before I'd only beendriving that for about a week at thatpoint for some reason when I got onstage I decided to do I was going to gocircumnavigate r2 on stage and a wiremade it complicated for myselfso I'm then I'm running it running off amonitor and I'm going behind somethingand I lose it for a bit and then itpicks up again and I made it really Idon't know why but in the in the momentit seemed like a cool thing to do it andit will work tell but really funny whenI came on stage with the mark 1 and JJhadn't seen at this point no one hasseen it and I drove on and rehearsal Ihad the head dip down like you know he'spurposeful and he's going somewhere andJJ went yeah can you keep the head up nooh okayyou'd say that's cool can you just keepthe head up right you know I'd like sometime to think right because it was builtinto the forward motion tomorrow so thenI had to pull back on the head stick anddrive forwards and trying to hit my spotand remember to turn you know so itbecame one of those things and I thinkto be honest on the day we did it Iforgot and I just drove it on and theheads kind of dip down a bit but thatwas the pop that footage on YouTube theunveil and they pants in the audienceand keyboar owner immediately I saidbecause it hit the Twitter immediatelyand I was like huh whatyeah is without a doubt you know mycareer highlight and I don't thinkyou'll ever topic you know that thefeedback I was made with backstage andyou know everything in your heads goingwhat emotion and I do remember that wasjust this massive roar and Josh was Iwas looking back for Joshua's behind mesomewhere you know and just kind ofstaring at but I'm still on stage tryingto concentrate in this is war and thenit kind of calms down again and and JJstarts talking and him and it it wasjust amazing I can't you know that was aone-off thing I don't think I can'timagine it ever happened againthat's the entertainment equivalent ofthe launching of the iPhone and all thelast-minute engineering tricks the endto get that stage performance and youknow what we lost the battery we had onewe had one bb-8 at that point now wehave multiples for backup but we had oneand we were charging it up took it offcharge went to turn on and it wouldn'twork and I was like oh god I mean weliterally got nothing it's completelydead so then we go and could it be theyou know the ring the power transmissionring it could it be there one of thebattery solder joints when it hit whenthe battery heated up when they werecharged in thethat's all did you want it cracked so wehave to say no he's going for thebatteries and one of them was open openso it's literally about two hours beforewe were going on so yeah classic curiousif you've if you've crossed paths withmy friend Don bees I haven't but Josh'sworked with him Josh worked on thePhantom Menace and was helping youngbees with r2 on them yeah so Don beeswas the r2 operator for many many yearshe started out as the archivist at theLucasfilm ranch when I met him at themodel shop in 98 he'd been a model makerfor many years and specifically r2 washis main project so I actually helped doa I took one of the original norocengineering Artoo's and modified its twoleg to three leg transitions or shotfrom this from the second Star Wars filmRoy noise episode 2 yeah it was reallyfunny and that was a pneumatic rig thatwould have taken your finger off if youhad your finger in the wrong place itwas a terrifying it was like this yeah areal death trap you have punched holesin titania with it you could almost nono I don't think so I think Iron Manwould still winI mean and since the release of episode7 that kind of an end know theappearance of BPA it's launched a wholenew category of toys and robotics yeahof these kind of gyro sterilized robotsand an also whole community of builderswho spent months trying to reverseengineer the things that you've beendoing do you I mean we're keeping an eyeon that and Coase we were yeah I'mcurious if there were anybody'sexecutions where you are like oh niftysolution hadn't concerned well well I'mgonna sound bighead even if I say no butI don't think there were there wasthings that we were amazed how fastpeople got onto it you know that was theone thing and there was all that youknow the mead you were going mad abouthow does it work how's the hit stay onright is it you know and there was allsorts of people were being asked likeuniversities and engineering institutesand I remember one quote in a paperwherean engineer doctor of engineer andsomewhere in London and one of ouruniversities just said you know there'sa number of ways you could achieve thatit doesn't really matter how they did itthey executed it to perfection and Ithought that's it it says smoke andmirrors it's the magic trick we work infilm it doesn't matter how we did itthis is it you know it's we did it forreal and we and everyone believed it andit was real and and this is my dad'sjoke he used to smile used to say when adog is walking on its hind legsyou don't go oh how well is he walkingon his merrie you're just like he'swalking a design like that's enough foreverybody so he classified a whole levelof performance says it's a dog walkingon its hind legs no one's gonna questionit exactly but we did you know even saythat we did fall into the trap of likewe were building it and you know we werejust we can get it to roll along andturn and the head works done and then Iwas like I think I figured out a way youcan spin on the spot cuz I was set on myoffice chair do all this going if I dothat I can kind of shuffle round on myoffice chair so is that just inertia andso then I said to Josh could do you makethis bit spin the batteries if you spunall the batteries because that's theheaviest part and it meets oh and he'sgot in the under sauce and you spin it'sactually the it doesn't really work ifyou just spin them and want to go in theopposite direction I can't break outfriction ray it's too much friction onthe ground so you saw me do it in thedirection that you want to go and inbreak it and then it transfers all thatso that was one but that's one of thethings on stage where people would firstwin oh wow look at it and then someoneon one of the Twitter feeds win how didhe just do that it just follows and it'sthose little things that and like themark one and I can say all this becausewe released the designs for that on thecelebration the following year when wewere on - mark - and we couldn't figureout how to get the LEDs into the spherebecause it was a very thin fiberglass sothen again I went we could laser projectand it sounds crazy and jostles going haGod will you because then he has to workout where all that the lights are on thesurface and we put a array of red bluelasers and white talk as we use a focusmagnet for the white and they projectout onto the outside of the spherethrough lenses so there's always knowexactly the orientation but they justfigure just rotate with the axe oh mygosh so that it's once you've got themlined up they stay there and what'sreally interesting because there'sdubbins inside they would quite oftenget shadowed by something and they blinkso you get free blinking yeah Wow freeanimation that is a remarkable solutionI mean we moved on from that we yeah wemoved it because another it was anotherlast-minute thought we can't you knowthat we couldn't start messing aroundwith the fiber that's good enough timeso I was like well what about if wechucks and was there was there aspecific mechanical problem that kickedyour ass more than any other hmmwell the poverty is the hardest part tobe honest is building it in the spherewith a reasonable one was like a ship ina bottle right josh is like how are wegonna get it in and be able to repair itif if something does go wrong then you'dhave to crack a seam which you then haveto refill which has to be on earth ithas to be perfect and repaint and we'renot painters you know and so that's thethat was the real thing the ship in thebottle aspect of it yeah I would saydoes the because you guys aren'tpainters onset is scenic Department arethey keeping we have your version ofbleeding we have painters we have acreature effects painted called henrikstenson who's painted all of us a lot ofour creatures and most of the bb-8 who'sincredible but we didn't have him withus in Anaheimso if something went wrong there and wehad to break it well we could eitherwork through the Axis powers we havewhich were kind of triangles about thisbig yeah yeah all there was you had tobring it okay so that was the horribleaspect of it and you just got back fromd23 where you were performing 2.0 or 3.0yes that's well that's kind of two pointone I would say so there's a two pointnaught and then that was our productionmodel that was epic so once we built thered carpet then became part of our toolkit all the BBS because there we havetrikes we have puppets and we have a redcarpet one you know so that's two pointone because that's a slight upgrade onthe two point naught but yeah and he didwell he did very wellaired every well he was with r2 and thenew droid do so which got released thiscelebration just gone so yeah it did itgood you know it's a it's an incredibleyou can drive that bb-8 and r2 and dothrough a crowd of a list celebritiesand they're all go crazylook there's I mean having an r2 in myshop I still every couple of days I'mlike I can't believe this beautifulthing is my job I mean there's a thrillto seeing these things in person at fullscale moving by themselves so is there acharacter and emotional connection istrue and we'll Eve we're even walkingbehind it was were most people don'tcare about us unfortunately but we'reliterally so Salma Hayek like comes upso oh my god droids and she's looking atbb-8 nothing anything yes but then she'saha to my children about her she prefersour to acknowledge bb-8 you know ther2d2 builder's club wall-e builder'sclub they all have that same story theybring their Wally's and there are choosetwo conventions and it's the reactionsor it's so rewarding every time it's allits kids yeah everyone cry it breaksdown everyone though oh yeah yeah thethrill is real I mean it must say evenfor you I'm sure that when you firstfired it up in the shop and it's movingaround there's a moment of I love Ireally enjoy it my favorite part of myjob you know I've done 25 years increature effects but actually myfavorite part has become doing live bb-8performance is fascinating because it'sactually when I was on Potter I startedto notice this we on possibly built somereally incredible animatronics but itwas all starting to go digital right wewere losing a lot of work to digital andone of the nicest things was theHippogriff that we built we built afully standing Hippogriff which couldmove one front leg one back leg thetower would move the wings would fullyunfold all feathered the head isobviously fully animatronic so you canmake it bow and you can do all thosekind of stuff he never got used in thefilm lived in the flat views we got onset and we we planted in the ground it'sthe scene where Harry Potter first meetsHippogriff uh-huhI helped buck big and he goes up andsupposed to touch him and basically thedirector went oh okay take a stepforward with buck Beaton we likeno it's planted so that was that get ridof itit's digital ha but then became thisincredible museum piece in ourdepartment and kids would come in and weI'd have a running on the systemperforming it but then I had apre-programmed loop as well my bosswould come in and kind of go this isbuck breeding you have to bow and therewill the kids would love it and bow andstuff and then they go him over therelike man behind the curtain with thecontrols and I'd hit a bust and I go noit's not me and I'd walk out with thispre-program Luke walk over to theHippogriff go bow and it would bow it'sa whole thingyeah and then before they figured outthat it's on a loop I'd get back to thecontrols change the parameters just asthey think it's just like I justrealized at that point I really loveddoing that performance aspect of itwhich was lovely and then and so beingthat my feedback yeah and the lifeevents uh bb-8 is doing the live bb-8stuff is a massive extension from thatis there is there now having contributedto film history with a wonderful drivesystem in this special bot are therehave you gained appreciation for otherfamous film robots or is there one you'dlove to tackle hmm it too annoying Ilove I mean I love my hexapods I'vebuilt are all statically stable but ohwell they tore nine and I love to Scoutwalkers I mean that's the first model Ibuilt I've got me a job in industry ohwow that's built Scout Walker so yeahright so I actually worked on a physicssimulation of a scout Walker type droidthing for one of the films we wereworking on but it never went anywherebut I built the whole walking system ina physics environment I just never gotit to work for real and that's anotherexample of where you know that'sstop-motion animator yeah exactly and soyou have a human touch and human orstanding of animation so if you do itmechanically us can you replicate humantouch can you add the ability to walkdown stairsthat's the tricky bit but then that'sthe whole thing you know that's partthat's my job being that like it's beenmy job for the whole time in animatronicso I'm always trying to make robots notlook like a roadso Anat because they're creatures theycan't look robotic so you have to addthat human touch in and some of the hexpods I built I put vision systems intothem and stuff and I just add filterslike that damp the movement and stuffand people look so lifelike it's reallysimple tricks well I think is simpletricks just to take the edge out of theflow of movement you know yeah so if Idid do an ED two and I would definitelymake it I'll try and mimic what feelsright you know that the movement and theflow and stuff well there's the thingyou said about BBH head going down youget this extra animation is the Muppetears do that too with their puppets sospecifically when you see a muppetthat's got like feathers on its headyeah those feathers move get that andflavor yeah they become this extra bonusin Russian that adds so much more lifeto the character so we did a count tocall six eyes for solo which we did wetook on stage with us at celebration todemonstrate because that is all of thatideas taken to the enth degree which iswhen I saw it it has six eyes on stalksand I was like I'm putting an IMU inthis head that's gonna attract the gyroand it's going to attract the movementso one of the hardest things when you'reperforming eyes on somebody'sanimatronic face and someone else'sinside the suit you get no rehearsaltime so you know when when they're gonnalook right or when they're gonna lookleft and when your eyes should blink andgo with them so with this system Ibasically went to town with it and thewhole all of the eyes basically trackedthe actors moments rather than be outyou know the puppeteer I can stillpuppeteer them I can take over menucontrolraise three axis stereo just followingyou kind of follow it but also what Idid is when there's grouse move I throwblinks in because generally speakingwhen you when you do that it's a reallycheap trick with our most Ronix but ifyou just blink when you change gaze youknow cheap trick but it works and if youlook at that footage of us demonstratingthat in Anaheim it's it's a beautifulthing you know it's really and that wastaking so it's taking that technologyanother step further and trying to getmore free animation you'll proceed tothem before we continue with this week'sepisode I won't let you know that stillentitled this week is made possible withsupport from m'aimes hazelnut spreadchocolate candies when you need to hitpause on the demands of everyday lifegrab the new M&Ms hazelnut spreadchocolate candies and guaranteed todeliver a delicious combo of hazelnutspread and milk chocolate in everybite-sized piece M&Ms hazelnut spread isgoing where no hazelnut spread has gonebefore right inside M&Ms chocolatecandies if you love M&Ms chocolatecandies and you love hazelnut spreadjust wait until you try these togetherfor the first time they've added adelicious hazelnut spread the center ofsmooth M&Ms milk chocolate and crunchycandy shell enjoy them on their own oruse them to dress up your favorite othertreats just imagine them baked from thecookies or sprinkled on top of yourgo-to ice cream flavor I used to eathazelnut spread directly out of jars incollege all that deliciousness andenergy would get me through those longnights and now I can have them in aperfect bite sized portion in the M&Msnew hazelnut spread chocolate candies infact I've been salivating the entiretime reading this go hazel nutty and trythe new M&Ms hazelnut spread chocolatecandies today and then back to theconversation you're reminding me ofsomething that my friend Mike elizaldedid its spectral motion for one of theHellboy films with the death puppet yesI yes I've met him yeah I figured youacross yes we've met mark Setrakian yeahmark so sorry mark Setrakian it marks aTrekkieand we went to spectral motion wevisited there I think last year sometimeamazing job and they do incredible stuffMark's an alien but I love the fact thatall the eyes on that puppet just allactually tracked to each other yeahwhich is one of those like wow yeahthat's that's that's what I love whenyou can take something that you know areincredible builders good stuff or youcan built the six eyes mech and you knowhe put lights like nearly 60 servos inthat head oh my god and you know whenyou get something like that on your deskand you think this is just a joy in somebecause you're gonna have so much fungetting it moving but it's having thetools to do it you know I've beenworking on control systems for so longthat you know I've now got this lovelytoolkit of stuff that I can go homeleave a stick that in thereyes fun it's really good fun when you'redown in Anaheim did you get a chance togo through and see the new animatronicsin the galaxy's edge though I did seegalaxies edge I didn't see many I'lltell what I did see one animatronicactually and it was in one of the giftshops I think it was on the high-endgift shop Connie what it's called nowand it's the only one who's one of ourcreatures as well I know it along yesyeah yes beautiful yeah beautiful reallynice then that one has a great keep alife like to be anything yeah yeah yeahand it's just there's the nice and againI've noticed they're throwing blinkswhen they change gaze and stuff yesbeautiful I don't view tricks and theywork for everybody yeah exactlyit's awesome and I very fortunatelyvisited three or four years back nowImagineering and they were working onthe big blue what was it for avatarunder is new yeah but then they wereanimating that in this really cleversaloon they were animating that in likeyou know an animation package in virtualanimation and just transferring itstraight to the animatronic which iswhen you see things like Boston Dynamicsrobots they're big dog in their squadminis do you get excited about thefuture of robots and how they might beable to work with us totally yeah no Idon't get this it's the apocalypsecoming there's always an off button andthey need charging still it's fine youknow my friend so rodney brooks a formerdirector of MIT Media Lab had this greatphrase he said to me at a conference wewere at he said look we shoulddefinitely be scared about hyperintelligent AI but not yet he's likegetting scared about it right now islike discovering fire and worrying aboutthermonuclear war yeah it's going tohappen but it's gonna be a we're gonnahave a long time yeah exactly exactly Idon't embrace it I love ityou find the it's a power still the biggating factor right now I mean thingsbalance power density yeah wait yeah Imean you could run an off a smallnuclear reactor but people are gonnalike that are they so it's like okayit's a nuclear spot mini it can run fora PR disaster butright yeah you use one of those nuclearheating units they lose in space isabout a little Stirling engine on it runforever they go yeah exactlyfurther contaminating everybody attackyes no I love the the Boston dynamicstuff is beautiful and the way they moveas well they've you know it's just thisis getting less and less robot like youknow the flow of the motion again it'syou know look at that thingI'd love to get hold of one do some ofmy play with some of the algorithms orsome well so III I was at a conferencelast year and Mark raybert was giving ademo about how spot mini moves throughspace which was totally amazing becauseit's really simple it can map the spaceand then it just it says okay if I movewith a gait of eighteen inches you knowhere's where all my footprints wereappear as I navigate the path oh I'mhitting two obstacles okay let's doseventeen and a half inches and it justadjusts the gate until it hits noobstacles on its way oh that's nice isit brilliant and we're looking at itslayout with green steps and red stepsand it just has this algorithms is goodenough let's start moving and it justwith every step it takes it reassesseswhat's in front of it so yeah my mantisrobot my giant heck support has no viewof its external world you know itliterally only knows the world when it'stouched it right so it's doing it purelyby touch so you can only assume thateverything in front of you is anobstacle so that's why it moves quiteslowly right right rightit's running it's like running for afootball field pitch blind or boulderfield blind or whatever you know youwere just how hard is it it's reallyhard to run blind so everything that ittouches once it's touched it it knowshow high it is and where it is and andyou know but by the time it's hit anobstacle it's probably two lakes it'scrashed through it's there's 150 kiloleg a very different way of doing thingswould do you it's your ideal like beingable to ride your robot to workyeah sure open it what's one Marlinhours way about one mile and about acertain point you'll be able to make onegallop two gallons per mileto Galus I've heard that tanks and thenfuel efficiency of a tank is often ingallons per mile there you go greatbig power density it is yeah with thefull gallon tank you're not getting veryfar so what are the personal projectsare that's a personal project so I'mstill doing my giant Lego stuff Ihaven't done some giant leaguer for awhile but if you don't know I scale up1980s technical Lego kits which for meyou know as much my love letter to Legocuz that's what got me like bright andmy engineering brain going was legotechnic in the late 70s and 80s so Istarted with them and just started scarethem up with my nephew he builds andwith me and stuff in resin or fiberglassno it's all 3d printing all right PLA 3dprinted slow well you say it'sincredible actually I know I startedwith a go-kart there's a hundred piecesthe last thing I did was attractive was350 pieces I did a bulldozer before thatwas 400 pieces individual literallyindividual pieces Ollie just constantlyusing the systemI mean exactly and I've have I have fourprinters now so you know then you canstart to reach you and stuff out mostload them up and I'd print like 12 hourruns overnight then have another 12-hourrun for the day shift in the 12-hour runfor the night shift and so on just gottaget on this program makes big ones -yeah and you meet Adam from Google X whoas the foam ones there's a helicopterthat's amazing yeah absolutely why notso I've got another giant Lego thingcoming up which is even bigger still soI usually do 5 times scale and thisone's 8.34 time scale specific seethere's a very good reason for thisshould have been 8.33 recurring but Irounded up to eight point three Forks isbecause it's easier and that is becausethat the diameter of a lego technic X orthen becomes 40 millimeters and you canget 40 mil bearings specifically youdidn't want to just have one part bemiss scaled no you had to have an entiredrive really appreciate it so afive-time scale that the bearing is 24mil so yeah that worked out bang on butI was gonna say print that size but thismakes more sense with a bit of that aswell so there was that the brute bitsize to fit a 1 by 4 brick on yeah andbe as big as I can buteight-point-three fool oh my gosh so ifyou ran into someone who has a 3dprinting company and they say to you ohyou should print some stuff with myprinter you just have like here give mea hundred fifty of these exactly I loveit I always have to think about what theproject is oh man well maybe we'll do aspace helmet but I love having a rostrumyeah yeah you sent me a whole bunch ofthese yeah goodso yeah bit of that and what else iscoming up not been working on my campervan I think I said no doing a camperconversion so that's all like CNCplywood nice really nice to be workingin plywood again because I've been doing3d printing in plastic for so long I'veforgotten about my routing I've got aCNC router and I forgot I used to buildeverything flat-pack yeah everything wasright how can I make it flat and inknots things in and put like this thebest and I try and do it in one passright yeah dry and then you do it elsenow exactly yeah exactly so I've goneback to that no no this is lovely thisworking lovely birch plywood and youknow this is the smell of it and thefeel of it compared to plasticI believe so we just spent we just didSilicon Valley comic-con I was showingyou my star-lord helmet and we were itwas all 3d printing finishing andpainting here yeah so I broke out someold lacquer primers I had to get usacross the line but it was all that kindof work and so that following theweekend following I just came in hereand did some work wood plywood yeahbecause it was so nice to glue andstaple and route yep yeah it's goodtotally agree so yeah that's a car thingthat's it I'm just do you have tripsplanned with the camper van I've been toFranceso we did gave it one outing literallythe problem is I can't do things byhalvesand so my girlfriend went oh we shouldgo to France before she starts a new joband I said yeah okay great right we'llget the whole camp system built in so Ihad two weeks and I'd kind of done I'vedone a lot of the CAD work but I did getit together and I had like a you knowfresh water system and a cooking bid anda fridge and a day so I did too much inone go so then I took at the Franceworked really well but as soon as I gotback I stripped it all out and went tomark three down so yeah so now it's allgoing back in again but better thank youvery similar but I would love to go anddo here I'd love to go and do a longertrip I want to do like a couple ofmonths or whateverEurope or somewhere you know aScandinavia and stuff agent lightfulyeah did you document all your all yourprojects and then can your progress logsand not well enough the problem is so myyoutube channel goes up and down throughphases my problem I have I love makingthings I hate stopping to film them soyou know yeah a nice fun it like thecampervan thing I think I just did youknow the CEM prevalence stuff doesn't dovery well either so you're making it youknow like just that love really okay soyou guys what yeah just someone want tosee it you know the Lego does where thegiant they go usually does well but I Ijust want to make it and I've built allthe stuff and then I'm well I'm nowgonna set up a table and some lights andtalk about it and film it and I don't doit as I go along so then I've got abacktrack and thing then it comes lessfor you yeah yeah totally so exactlyyeah and it's so but then I find I feellike I have to because every timewithout filming it yeah so yeah are youhacking you have to you have to do somestuff without filming yeah yeah that'syeah yeah eventually people gonna wantthat you know the history of v8 yeah allof them all the problems that weresolved mark one mark - yeah mark threewhatever comes down the line maybe oneday we'll be able to do that do you evergo on to the bb-8 builders group andsupply information and not supplyinformation no too many NDA'seven about mechanical drive systems andstuff whether they you know they'realways very keen to show me what they'vebuilt which is lovely and it's amazingseeing such a you know incrediblefollowing of that character and whatthey're coming up with a naval come upwith slightly different versions away insome of the stuff you know I look atsome of the bills and I'm like muchneater than ours and so I think I meanit's really really put there there's acouple of our twos that are mind-blowingevery door open there's not a single r2a dial Emma yeah totally exactly yeahbecause we build to what we need webuild firstly the requirement need to beexactly so you know there are some stuffout there some stuff out that I'velooked tango on yet that's really niceand it you just want to be able to go ifyou did that but I can't do no no meanit's really frustrating and and I don'tthink yeah I've really given away to Ihope I haven'tthey do try and ply me with drink nowand again I totally get you on now yeahtoo many NDA's it's a shame maybe oneday you know no one cares anymorebut IIIi you know I think the the thefilm film can get so much out of thesecommunities in terms of enthusiasm Ilove the idea of a future where theyrealize that with some give back it is anet positive for everyone you know andLucasfilm I mean to be clear Lucasfilmwas an early adopter of understandingthat the fans do great stuff and toleave them alone and not send a ceaseand desist orders and well totally Imean we have Li Tao Zi and all of usdeep was worked on episode 70 were bothfan builders right okay - and Lee'sstill with usin fact I was with him at d23 just justthe other day so that's awesome yeahthat's what he is really good then weuse fan build droids you know for thefilm and themselves you know we pullthem in and whatever I don't income umfor a better yeah that's incredible yeahit's really goodso you know that is yeah I just I justthink it's more it's more about thestuff the new stuff we build them moreyeah that's funny about but they did letus you know to fair play and when wecame out to do celebration in London asme that suggested actually I finallywent hide you know why don't we shouldjust show them what was inside BBAeveryone was asking about it and wecouldn't say anything and you know doesit really matter anymore to know youknow yeah and the answer came back yeahsure I was shocked actually had toconvince Josh the other engineers showit because they could see how I built itthey can't see your software so thatcould in fact my boss Neal Scanlanconvinced Joss that there's a cool thingto do you know and so the very last shotso a lot of the audience are a bit likewhy are we looking at this inside ofthis mech but then a load of the droidsoh and now we have a whole load ofbuilds who are building the mark-1 bb-8exactly as it was and we and I've metthem are gone you know we wouldn't do itthat way anymore okay I want it to bescreen accurate to hell them all yeahtotally get that one yeah way therewell next time we see one on stage andthe next time I pick it event will seethe will appreciate animation but we'llalso see that you're behind the curtainappreciate always yeah exhibitI'm delighted that you've made it overto the caves thanks for being on ourpodcast delighted to have gold hereabsolutely amazing thank you of courseyou're welcome anytime thank you verymuch\n"