Star Wars Wooden BB-8 Droid Project
I received an opportunity to attend a Studio Art class during my last year at Guelph University in 2016. Our objective was to build something, anything out of a single piece of pine wood while using every single element of it. I recently saw the trailer for Star Wars The Force Awakens and really enjoyed the look and design of the protagonists’ droid, BB-8.
Turning a slab of wood into a round sphere was not something I have done before so I did some research! I started by finding a 3D model of a sphere and uploading it into 123D Make by Autodesk. This program will convert a 3D model into modifiable slices that can be printed out and traced into whatever medium you desire from paper, cardboard to wood. I entered the thickness of my wood plank and started printing the slices. Once the templates were all printed, they were glued to the surface of the wood and cut out with a band saw. The piece were then joined together with carpentry glue and left to dry overnight. After many sanding sessions on the various sanding machines, I had a pretty smooth surface.
Keeping to the project outlines, I decided to make a base out of the off cuts of wood and covered the base in wood glue and the saw dust collected from the sanding sessions. The saw dust used to simulate desert sand. The antenna was carved out of a piece of wood and the eyes/sensors were from knots in the pieces of wood to give it a natural darker color .
Finished! This was a great learning experience. How to turn digital 3D objects on a computer and translating them to a physical medium was a fun thing before I had access to 3D printing. You have to start somewhere!
Enjoy the gallery of photos
Thanking for viewing!