As of this writing, I am doing what I usually do around this time of year: assessing the state of my various projects and trying to decide what I can actually finish before Dragon Con (which is now less than 3 months away). Unless I make a lot of progress soon, I am faced with the prospect of having nothing working at all this year.

(BTW, I realize that I’ve not yet posted a followup after last year’s cons. I started writing it, and then got sidetracked partway through as the style I was using petered out. I still have a draft that I may publish eventually.)

As I write this, we are mere days from Dragon Con 2021, and I am already tired.

That is primarily because for the last two weeks or so I have been busily getting everything ready that I didn’t get around to doing during the two years since the last in-person convention. (Due to Covid-19, Dragon Con was virtual in 2020.)

Largely this involved three fandoms: Star Wars, Hardware Wars, and Ghostbusters.

Since the previous post back in January, a lot has happened. Most obviously, of course, is the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing, and lockdown. Sadly, many have suffered unemployment. I am fortunate enough that my employer is considered an essential business, so I’m still working — even working from home to some extent.

Naturally, I made my last post several months ago and I have now completely forgotten what I intended to write about Dragon Con 2019. But let’s see…

Most of my spare energy for the last few months has gone into designing BB-5M’s electronics and modeling his dome. It has been a slow process, as there’s just not much energy to go around these days. That is why it has taken this long to get around to writing up what I did to get everything up and running for Dragon Con this year.

A bit more than a month and a half ago, I took Artie and my Spin Master BB-8 to LCTC. Afterward, I was anxious to get more droid projects going. My specific intention for this year has been to get an actual Star Wars droid (that wasn’t merely purchased) ready before DragonCon. I also need to work out a few issues with Artie’s internals. Let’s see what’s going on now.

One of the things that Mr. The Wombat suggested during LCTC was the idea of having little Artie and BBL-BBQ action figures in packaging similar to the Kenner 3.75″ figures from our youth.

I’ve encountered the idea of custom figures before but I hadn’t considered doing it for my Hardware Wars robots. Though in fact I know someone out there has done a custom 4-Q-2 figure.

I have arting skills, I have a 3d printer. Naturally, I have to do it…

So it’s been nearly seven months since Dragon Con 2018. As I described back in From The ground Up, I meant to update long before this. In fact I wrote a large chunk of this post in September, to capture some of what happened at Dragon Con while it was still relatively fresh in my head. Then I promptly forgot to finish and post it.

Still, anyone who has read the last few years of posts knows how this tends to go … right after Dragon Con I get distracted by Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years in quick succession.  Last year was no exception.

To make matters worse, my post New Years droid plans were almost immediately derailed by a couple of real life upheavals, and I just haven’t had the mental space or time to do very much. I’ve just been trying to tread water since early January.

I just took a break to attend another con this past weekend, however, so I thought it was well past time to catch up.

So it’s been nearly nine months since Taking Stock, and seven months since Dragon Con 2018.

I meant to update long before this, and in fact I wrote much of this material in July, shortly after the last post.  But I got distracted with trying to get Artie working in time for con, and I’ve been no less so since I returned.

Test Artie is partially dismantled; I’m preparing to cut the wood everything was mounted to so it will fit under the Pantaloons.  As such, I’ve disconnected all the electronics, unsoldered the motor wires, removed the caster, etc.  I also have a small amplifier and speaker on order that should arrive today.

I thought now might be a good time to pause and summarize the Artie Deco Project thus far.  I’ll go over the Bill of Materials and cost for most of the parts in the current design, since I’m closing in on the end of the build…