DanSto

For comparison with the UCS

Six months ago, I introduced you a mid size R2-D2 in the Aboard Invisible Hand layout for the astromech contest. Now, after a few days of work with LPub, the building instruction is ready. If you want a free copy of the 13 Mbytes pdf file, request it with a personnal message giving your e-mail and containing your engagement do not share it and use it without my agreement. Some images as preview :

At the end of this year, I present you a small retrospective of my MOCs built during this year : More can be seen on this slideshow. Happy new year.

I have submitted this MOC as a Cuusoo project but it was rejected "due to the potential political connotations of a 9/11 memorial project". For me, the destruction of the tower was a political act but the memorial is clearly apolitical and is a tribute to the victims. So, end of this story.

Thanks a lot. For the steering wheel, I used an antenna and a 1x1 round brick inserted into the last part of the tower to have the possibility to put it exactly on top as shown by this pictures showing some details of the building :

OK tomdobs55, no problem : I was looking for a hidden message or a joke about my pseudo . I think I will put it on Cuusoo and I will let you know.

Second version of the black base in order to make it more Architecture-like. Close view of the base Top view of the whole MOC The base is made of two level of plates and one level of tiles : it is empty in order to include the main part of the MOC and the two parts (tilted by 14 degrees) are assembled using some 3x2 plates underneath Maybe should I send it on Cuusoo ?

Thanks. Please, could you explain what "dansanto" means ?

I would have needed more than 3 points but my vote is : 9 by Captain Nemo - 2 points 2 by wonderpuddle - 1 point Good luck to all.

This MOC is mainly based on virtual pictures because the OneWTC tower is still under construction (the top has been reached) and the 9/11 Memorial is near completion. Two virtual pictures which have inspired the MOC : The final MOC will be a mixture of both virtual images. The 9/11 Memorial does not present any major difficulty : the two fontains are made with black tiles and explain the relative thick base. The OneWTC tower is more challenging because of the straight lines running from the corners of the square base to the corners of the 45 degrees rotated square top : The construction is inspired by the one of set 21001 where similar lines are represented by small steps. Some pictures of the MOC Close view of the Memorial Any comments are welcome.

This layout won the SeTechnic Star Wars contest (the prize is the R2-D2 UCS set) with only one vote more than the second which is the R2-D2 factory by Bayou.

Thanks (to you and to all others), I am pleased to see that you enjoy this tribute. Concerning C-3PO, I find more difficult to do such a layout but why not (it would need a lot of gold parts ).

Act III : Aboard Invisible Hand Accompanying Anakin and Obiwan in their rescue of chancelor Palpatine, R2-D2 encountered 2 super battle droids on the boarding desk of the Invisible Hand. The two strong droids did not realized that our little astromech has more than one trick in its bag : R2-D2 burned the 2 stupid droids using its lateral propulsion boosters after having ejected some oil over them. The scene is built by a small part of the Invisible Hand landing deck including a part of the wall and of the roof which can be entirely included into the head of the bust. Extraction and unfolding of the wall/roof in video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl5HHaNAsrs Another video focussing on act III http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AVoXdgqyN4 A few pictures of the scene : So, when needed, R2-D2 can craftily be more than a defensive droid even if it has no weapons. Well, this is the end of the show ... not really. Complete layout To be completely honnest, this picture has been modified to show the closed bust and the scene inside it as exhibited by the red outlines. A video, showing the installation of the small scenes onto the layout http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP_3GQZ2lHc This tribute is mainly focussed on the personnality of the droid rather than on its mechanics, on its evolution rather than on its conception, on the acquired experience rather than on its initial programmation, it illustrates also its loyalty (up to its sacrifice) to its owner and its adventure companions and, finally, on its craftiness when required. Without this, it would only be an usual R2 astromech and not R2-D2. Well, this is really the end of the show ; I hope you enjoyed it like I enjoyed to displayed it.

Act II : Into Petranaki's arena C-3PO, met on Tatooine, is now R2-D2's best adventure companion and both are serving Padmé who is now Naboo's representative at the Senate. When the battle between the jedis and the separatist droids begins into the Petranaki arena, after the failed execution of Padmé, Anakin and Obiwan, R2-D2 rescued first C-3PO who's head has being wrongly assembled with a droid body and reciprocally. Without taking care of the raging battle around it (maybe did it think that the battle was not its problem), R2-D2 takes C-3PO's head away from the fallen battle droid body in order to repair the protocole droid by fixing back the head to the right body. The built scene displays a small part of the huge arena, in order to focuss attention on R2-D2 who is the main character, at the crucial moment when the super battle droids take part to the fight. During the saga, R2-D2 will reassemble its companion a few times but here, it is once where it did it from its own initiative. The scene can be added to the other corner of the layout and recalls the one of act VI focussed on the same duo of droids. Next, act III (the last one) "Aboard Invisible Hand" ...

Act I : The astromech serving the sovereign of Naboo R2 units are made in large quantities into Industrial Automaton (IA) factories to serv in various domains. When such units are required for the Naboo's palace or for maintaining the N1 Naboo's starfighter, tens of R2 droids are made into IA local factories and delivered to the client. At the beginning, R2-D2 was a droid like others having the maintenance in charge and acting as copilot of N1 starfighters. Later, it was affected to the Royal Starship. So when queen Amidala tried to escape from the blockade of the Naboo's planet by the trade federation and had the shield of the starship was damaged, all astromechs aboard tried to fix the shield generator from outside. I have choosen to build the room of the starship where the astromechs are parked ready to fix every problem : This is the moment were R2-D2 becomes to be more than an usual droid when it was the last one fixing the shield generator allowing the royal starship to escape safely. Because this is an inside scene, I decide to build it in such a way that it can be inserted inside the torso of the bust as it can be seen on these two videos : Extraction : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO5H6ptleJI Insertion : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2STaQzTzIg The following videos and pictures give more details about the built scene which can be view from all sides (contrary to the scene of acts IV to VI) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wX6elD9QZs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZwWE7Ugqcg Outside the bust and into the layout : R2-D2 becomes then the personnal droid of queen Amidala and followed her on Tatooine where it meats C-3PO. Next, act II "Into Petranaki's arena" ...

Act VI : Back on Tatooine. At the opening of episode 6, R2-D2 brings a message from Luke to Jabba et goes to Jabba's Palace with C-3PO This very simple scene displays the huge palace into the background in the middle of nowhere at the end of this crude road used by the two droids to go there. The two droids have an infiltration mission but only R2-D2 knows all its aspects (hopefully because C-3PO speaks too much sometimes) : when C-3PO thinks that they have only a message to deliver, R2-D2 knows the whole message and knows also that he two droids will be given to Jabba in order to play a Troia Horse like role. Indeed, R2 units are customisable (not like C-3PO) in order to increase their functions : the head of R2-D2 catches the laser saber of Luke which can be ejected at the right moment to reach Luke. But R2-D2 has to be at the right moment at the right place (on the barge near the Saarlak mouth) explaining why the droids were gifts to serving Jabba. This is an exemple illustratring the major difference between both droids : R2-D2 will carry out its task without discussing contrary to C-3PO who discusses everything all the time and does often not do the right thing. Of course, this difference comes from its initial programmation but it has been accentuated during the journey : contrary to R2-D2, C-3PO has been periodically reprogrammed and its memory has been erased. Consequently, the preservation of R2-D2's memory during the whole story (its experience) explains the particular personnality of the little droid. At the end of episode 6, it is the only "living" character knowing the whole story of Anakin and of his descendants (it will show later the fatal encounter between Anakin and Amidala to Luke and Leia). I really like this picture (it was my second choice for the mosaic) and it is represented on a single 32x32 baseplate. The perpective is given by the small palace back focusing the attention onto the duo of droids in front. The scene of act VI can be integrated into the main layout as a substitution of one of the two front green corners. Next, act I "The astromech serving the sovereign of Naboo" ...

Act V : Misadventure on Dagobah R2-D2 is also Luke's copilot on the X-wing starfighter and goes with him on Dagobah. However, Dagobah is not a friendly planet for droids which needs flat surfaces in order to move easily. The scenarist of the saga made some fun with this when R2-D2 falls into water from the X-wing and is spit like a vulgar can by a marin beast. I wanted to show the trouble for R2-D2 to move on such a planet by a scene where it is trapped by the swamp up to its shoulder. Indeed, after a few boring days onto Dagobah, the Jedi formation of Luke taking a lot of time, R2-D2 finds a large rocky place without vegetation allowing to run. Unfortunately, after having aquiring some speed, it does not notice tha the rocky place ends abruptly with a swamp into which it falls (don't care, it will come out). This funny scene consists into a layout (136 studs wide and 104 studs deep) and a large bust of R2-D2 at the 2/3 scale. Building the bust (using modelization). The starting point of the building was the cylinder made of vertical panels (and not bricks as one can see too often) because it looks more realistic and it is more eaiser to modify each panel alone. The torso of the droid will consequently be made with sixteen 8 studs large panels fixed on a light structure based on circles built with hinges making a 22.5 degrees angle . The light structure : The 16 panels where the opening panels are explicitely shown using half a stud shifts : The cylindric torso (very light) showing the front slot and a video (it is sometimes slow but one can see the essential part) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njz97LSOh94 Sixteen panels being 8 studs wide give a perimeter of 128 studs corresponding to a diameter of 41 studs for the head. The head consists in a half Lowell sphere built with 5 decorated parts, each entirely made with hundred of plates. Each part took me two evening to build it after having realized its complete modelization : the modelization is based on 1x1 plate but the real building uses every kind of plates (mainly 1xn) The head modelization : Front view : Back view : Left view : Right view : Top view : And the whole head in video where one can notice that it is empty (the LDView video is a little bit slow at the beginning) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1nhfe7KZ8I With its 2 shoulders the bust is complete and R2-D2 can check that its head can rotate over 360 degrees Into the swamp In order to not just have a stand alone bust, it has been integrated into a layout displaying the swamp (the green surface of the swamp is cracked by R2-D2 fall) and the end of the rocky part where you can see the marks made by the wheels of R2-D2. This rock acts as a suporting stand for the background mosaic of act IV. Close view of the bust into the swamp : Back view with the rock : Some other pictures : Next, act VI "Back on Tatooine" ...

Overview The aim of this layout is to relate, into 6 acts, the initiatic journey of R2-D2 which, simple astromech at begining of episode I, will become a key character of the whole story and acquire its own personnality into the 6 movies of the saga. It is this personnality integrating human character (including some obstinacy) which explains its popularity and make it the most celeb droid in a movie. I will present you 6 scenes (one per movie, from act IV to VI and from I to III like the movie into 6 posts ending with the whole layout) relating this journey : one as mosaic, one as a large sculpture and 4 smaller scene at minfig scale forming a large layout as a tribute to the little droid.s been This layout has been made for the last SeTechnic Star Wars Contest annouced here in french. Act IV : Leia's messenger One of my prefered and emblematic Star Wars scene is the one where Leia records her help call to Obiwan into the Blockade Runner before it is catched. This makes R2-D2 particularly essential for the rebels because it has also the plan of the Death Star into its memory. The central part will be used to build a large mosaic which will becom the background of the layout : it consists of 4 panels having 32x70 studs and a tiled white border surrounding the whole mosaic. By using hinges to assemble the panels, the mosaic is curved and self-standing. It looks nicer when reduced in size : This mosaic has already been presented into this topic and I have taken new pictures for this new presentation. Next, act V "Misadventure on Dagobah" ...

Finally, my MOC finished third (over 67 participants) which is better that what I was expecting . If you are interested into the whole result, have a look to the page on HothBricks. Congratulation to all winners. A big thanks to Will for organizing such kind of contest.

One of my prefered and emblematic Star Wars scene is the one where Leia records her help call to Obiwan into the Blockade Runner before it is catched. This makes R2-D2 particularly essential for the rebels because it has also the plan of the Death Star into its memory. Taking the central part of this picture, I decided to realize a Mosaic of it. It consists of 4 panels having 32x70 studs and a tiled white border surrounding the whole mosaic. By using hinges to assemble the panels, the mosaic is curved and self-standing. The mosaic from front : It looks nicer when reduced in size : A top view showing the tilted panels : Back view : Enjoy PS: This topic has been lost during the server migration and has been reposted.

Hi, It seems that my entry presenting a mosaic dedicated to Leia and R2-D2 has been lost . If this can help, the link to the topic was "showtopic=74813#entry1407047". Please, could you try to recover it because I have no copy of what I have writen . Thanks.

Thanks for your encouraging comments. My planet has a diameter of 12 studs whereas the lego planet has a diameter of 11 studs : so it is only slightly larger (the contest rules say around 10 cm).

Thanks. If you compare to the pod racer, it is not larger but a little bit longer. At the end, it is hard to say what has fixed the size because I have tried several buildings to come to this version : the propellers played a particular role after I decided to use it and fixed the size of most of the rest. My feeling is that for the planet series, the size is not so crucial (OK it has to be mini scale) and the number of parts (which is around 70 for the catamaran) is more essential (say less than 100).

Let me show you my last small MOC which takes part of the My Own Planet contest organized by the Hoth Bricks blog. it displays the Kashyyyk planet where the wookies are coming from (Chewbacca is the most famous one) : and an Oevvaor catamaran : My MOC : The stand looks bulky because it integrates two micromotors allowing to rotate the planet and the catamaran as shown on the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUqxTkgUlXU

Up to new "world records" The highest speed performances have been established during the Saint Rambert modelism exhibition in 2009 were the voltage limit was set to 60 V instead of 30 V : - official high speed train : a 9V motorized ICE 7897 with 5 vehicles and 4 motor boggies conducted by Pierre L. reaching 25,59 km/h - prototype "train" : Turbo Space train with two 9V motors by Jerome T. reaching 29,81 km/h Now, we are aiming to overcome these records with the 30 V limit by improving the technic of the trains because there is too much risk to burn the motors at higher voltage.