Previously, on Dyne3D…

… I posted about the start of The AD Project, where I am creating an animatronic vacuum cleaner because of reasons.

In Episode IV: A New Drone, Episode V: The Vampire Strikes Back, and Episode VI: Return of the Redeye, I went into some detail on how I intend to accomplish it.

But, wait.

 

There has been an Awakening …

 

… Have you felt it?

 

Fleeing from the Cylon tyranny, the last Battlestar …

No, wait.  Wrong universe.

When last we left our intrepid hero (back in Episode V: The Vampire Strikes Back), he’d gone on at length about Artie Deco’s internal framework, motor choices, and so forth.

In this post, we will have a look at the electronics, programming, and exterior details.  Getting all of this finished with only a week or so remaining will probably involve lots of sleepless nights and most likely some crying.  (Thus the title.)

… “Vampire” because Roman numeral V, and also because Halloween is fast approaching and spoopy projects are increasingly on my mind.  Also, I couldn’t think of anything hardware-related that resembled “Empire”.

Look, just go with it, OK?

In the previous installment (Episode IV: A New Drone), I gave a reference photo of the original prop, showed my Artie as he appeared before I began the conversion, and labelled the parts of the drone for later reference.  In this post, I’ll be describing the early steps, mechanisms, and drive system.

Buckle your seatbelts, this will be a long post.

Meanwhile, in another part of my weblog, later that same day…

I previously talked a bit about the origins of The AD Project.  In this post, I’m going to be looking at the big picture so you know what we’re dealing with.

I probably should have titled this post “Episode I: The Phantom Project”.

As mentioned in “The future will be made of plastic“, back in September of 2015 I concocted a couple of projects I wanted to do for Dragon Con 2016.  One of those will be the subject of a short series of posts, starting here where I’ll give some background.

As a child of the early 1970s, the most influential cultural event that shaped my life was the release of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, which I originally saw at a drive-in theater.  Helpless to resist the unprecedented scope and refinement of its sci-fi setting, story, and characters, it became the cultural touchstone for my generation of geek.  Ultimately, I saw the film at least six times in the theater in the seventies, and many times on video in the eighties (and since).