Eva Foam (anti Fatigue Mats) Bb8

Foamtastic

Canada
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Been working on a lifesize BB8. I have made him using paper mache and EVA foam floor tiles. He is a semi static build, he doesn't roll around but his moves (tilts/turns) He also has sound effects and will soon have LED and Thumbs up blow torch.

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By — Last update

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Synthiam
#1  

You never cease to amaze me with the details of your builds - that's some serious engineering as well! Hope this gets the recognition it deserves!

#2  

Thanks, I studied several videos on neck animatronics and puppetry to work out how to make the mechanism. I was really happy with how well it turned out. I had the EZb already and all the servos, the rest of the mechanism cost about $20 to build. And as you can see with the way I have it set up I have complete control and can make the head tilt fron/tback/left/right go around in circles basically 360 degrees. I will be at ThunderCon in ThunderBay this year displaying BB8 and some other items. I am in talks with the editor or Star Wars Insider about featuring the BB8 build. I was featured in an issue a few months ago with another build, My AT-AT made from foam also.

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#3  

Wow dude , I love it. My friend who makes Ironman costumes swears by Eva foam mats as a building material. He has been trying to get me into this , I would love to see how you make these details.

#4  

Glad you like it. EVA foam is so great to use. I have a Facebook page and youtube page where I show how to do things with EVA foam. You should definitely give it a go. For the details I score the lines with a sharp knife and then heat up the foam with an iron, this melts that top layer of the foam and causes the scored lines to separate and make them deeper finer detail lines. Check out my youtube page for videos if you want. https://www.facebook.com/FoamtasticCreations/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0rzTuN8JW_pY0RDhS7Q0BA

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USA
#6  

Awesome, great work!

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Synthiam
#7  

Oooooh you're going to need to put an EZ-B in that foam ATAT!:D

#8  

Oh trust me it is on the to do list.:)

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Synthiam
#9  

Nice! Are you taking this to the thunder con end of October?!

I'm at my cabin but leave this week. It would have been awesome to come see it. When you're ready with a video, let me know and I'll push it to my friends in tbay - I'll get you quite a crowd:)

#10  

Hi, Yes BB8 and the AT-AT will both be on display at ThunderCon. I have been invited to display them in the Star Wars room with the 501st.

#11  

All the code has been done, now I just need to finish painting and building the little pieces.

#13  

Thanks, man, full video to be posted tomorrow.

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Synthiam
#14  

That's exciting! Can't wait to see it

#15  

Wow! what a busy past few weeks. I was working hard on getting BB8 finished but encountered a big problem. The head tilt mechanism got in the way of the thumbsup mechanism and during a test it snapped. So I had to decide what was more important head turn and tilt or head turn and thumbs up. I decided to go with head turn and thumbs up. So after a lot of rebuilding (I had to remove the whole internals and rebuild them 24 hours before the Convention). Once I had finished that I really wanted to add some sort of lights. But with only 14 hours to go until I was due to leave for the convention I didn't have much time. I chose to go with the light that flashes as BB8 speaks. After I installed that I wanted it to flash in time to his sound effects. So I wrote code for each audio file and well, I was really happy with how easy that was and how well it worked. Here is a video of the final testing only hours before heading off to the convention. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10K6AYUHp7o

And here is a video of an interview for local Thunder Bay Ontario news. If you skip to around 1:40 you will see me and a few of my builds including Wall-e and the AT-AT. The interviewer is also wearing a proton pack that I built.

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Canada
#16  

Awesome work @Familyman Thanks for sharing the video!