CHOPPER
I’m always looking for opportunities to learn and evolve my model making skills. From this desire, I embarked on my own personal project to design and build another droid from scratch. I settled on building Chopper, the grumpy Astromech droid from the Star Wars Rebels TV show.
Everything pictured below was 3D modelled, designed and built by scratch by me. The build isn’t quite finished yet however, it is really starting to take shape. My design consists of a custom aluminium internal frame/substructure that I designed and got cut on water jet cutter. This frame is designed to anchor all the parts together and serve as a robust central core that I can have all my 3D printed modular detail parts sleeve around.
I also designed Chopper to incorporate has functional arms in the dome that can come out through his retractable dome access doors just like is seen in show. The doors operate on a custom curved geared rail I designed and is powered by a continuous servo. These servos can open and close the access panel, allowing for the arms to come out. The arms are automated through the use of two Arduino compatible linear servo arms. As the arms extend it pushes the arms out and side access doors.