This year, we were again planning to venture to the incredible Portmeirion Steampunk event, and we made a lot of preparations to do so. We prepared outfits, racing teapots, and hats. Sadly, due to both the weather and my health on the day, we were unable to go.
I did, however, complete a rather rushed, but still effective steampunk ‘hat’. The event theme this year was going to be Star Wars, and given it was held on May the 4th, it was an ideal time to get the lightsabres out, and create something unique.
I already had a BB8 head that was 3D printed years ago. I had a lot of fun being silly with it, but it had then sat for a long time on top of shelves, and cupboards, doing very little. The paint finish had gone a little stale, and some of it had warped, so as I hate throwing things away, it became the candidate for a new project.
The idea was to have the BB8 head as a hat, with a cover coming down covering the rest of my face, and my neck. I’d wear a Scarlet Darkness dress that would fit the theme/colour. Then, design wheel covers for my wheelchair that looked like the body of BB8.
So the head was sanded down, glued, sanded down again, and I carried on with this until it finally looked something like the right shape again. BB8 is a droid from Star Wars, and is generally orange and white. There are multiple LEDs throughout the design, but ultimately, it’s orange and white.
So, after the sanding, multiple coats of plastic paint were applied to give it a nice white finish. Unfortunately, I still have a lot to learn about painting in a hurry, so it was less than optimal, however more sanding, more painting, and so on, finally got me to a place where it looked ‘okay’.
I found a couple of steampunk cogs from our stash to fill holes that had plastic parts lost or missing, and I re-inserted the dome for BB8s main ‘eye’. Incidently, that is just a strategically cut plastic bauble. We were still missing the orange, though, and just sticking plastic cogs on was not going to cut it. BB8 usually has a chrome trim around the bottom of the head as well.
To fix these issues, it was time to order random shiny things on the internet. Firstly, I needed the chrome trim. What I used was simply trim designed to replace the chrome on vehicles (around windows etc). It’s very sticky, and extremely chrome like/shiny thing. To replace the orange for BB8, I found copper tape. Yes, the copper tape that electrocutes slugs as they ascend up your plant pots.
If anyone reading has used that stuff, not only is it very thin, but it’s very sticky. These qualities made it very difficult to apply, however I did find a crude method of doing it that required me to cover the old orange areas with the tape (overlaps were unavoidable), and then trim it with a Stanley blade. It worked pretty well, but it still feels messy to me. Perhaps I will find another solution down the line.
Then, all that was left to do was sort out some LEDs for the head, paint some choice things black, stick some of those ever present steampunk cogs everywhere, and add some sort of cover to hide my face and neck.
The LEDs were easy enough. Someone once said to me at a robotics event, that I should never underestimate the merits of hot glue. That person also builds sci-fi robots. Thanks, Stephen. :) So, out came the hot glue gun, and a red LED was quickly bunged into the main ‘eye’.
For the side twinkling lights that are supposed to represent BB8s computations, we had to be quick and clever about it. I had no time for an Arduino, and programming. So, the holes were drilled for the 3mm colour changing LEDs we already had, and they were tested and glued in, but not until after they all had strategically bent cathodes and anodes to enable me to solder them all in parallel. This meant that I only needed to use two wires for each group of LEDs (there are two sets of computational lights on my BB8).
Luckily, as we’d tested beforehand, while the LEDs are all supposed to change colour together, they look random after the first few seconds, giving the effect of computations. It’s spectacularly simple, although the physics behind it, is less so.
Last but not least, the neck covering. An easy, but necessary job. The problem with the BB8 head, hat wearing idea, is that the 3D print we had of BB8 did not come below my chin. So, I needed to be able to attach cloth at the bottom, to cover that, and then my neck. It ultimately gives the impression of a very long neck. Rather like the main droid in the film Solo – L3-37.
For this, we just used one of our silk face masks. We attached bolts around the interior of the BB8 head (eight of them), and then put the same amount of eyelets into the cloth. We then just attached it. To put the entire ensemble on, one needs to slide their head into this first, where there is now a foam head rest inside to stop it sliding about.
Lastly, I did leave one of the supposed lights on BB8 blank, which I can see out of, with my left eye. It’s a shame I did not get to debut it at the intended event, and in my estimation it’s all a bit rushed, but all is not lost. We are booked in for Beachlab again, and I’ll be able to show it there. Perhaps just on the table, however. ;)
Emma.
