R2-D2

This project is very much a work in progress.

I'm building a life-sized R2-D2 in my garage. It's entirely 3d printed, using the files from Michael Baddeley.

So far, it's been about 1400 hours of 3d printing, mostly PETG with a few TPU parts for things like tires and flexures. The droid is running custom code on a Raspberry Pi, with an i2c bus for the (future) servos, lights, and other parts. It's controlled via Playstation Move controllers via bluetooth.

It currently runs and drives. I've finished the various electronics for the dome lights and holoprojectors, but they aren't mounted yet. I've designed electronics enclosures for holding the pi, speed controllers, fuse box, and audio amplifier. The next steps are to sand, bodyfill, and paint everything, and then I'll move onto fitting the animatronics.

The primary goal is to have a mostly movie-accurate droid that drives, can rotate the head, can open all of the panels and move the holoprojectors, and has all of the appropriate lights and sounds. Fans will know that R2 has a lot of continuity problems movie-to-movie and even scene-to-scene. I'm planning to style him after some of the early scenes in ANH, probably where Leia records her message.

After all that, the next goal will be to get the various mechanisms within the dome - the periscope, lifeform scanner, and so forth - and the arms and gadgets within the body. I'm planning to stick to movie-accurate gizmos with one exception: I'm adding a bubble machine.