A few weeks ago I left you with images of a cosplay build ‘in progress’ that my EE was creating. Since that post, we have accomplished several things. The cosplay was completed. We made it to DragonCon. I participated in my two day writing workshop. We came home only to turn around and drive back to Atlanta with our cats due to Hurricane Dorian (which did nothing, but we don’t take chances with our 4 year old). We came home and have attempted to return to our normal daily affairs. Dude, I’m tired.
Without further ado, I present to you the finished cosplay: HAL9000!
It took him the entire two weeks to complete this build. The LED inside the lens can change color, controlled with a key pad on the left side below the arm hole. It has straps connected to the bottom so the weight isn’t held by the top of the box or head hole. His original plan was to include a speaker with music and have the LED flash in time with the music. He ran out of time to incorporate this additions, due to one part build time and one part coding problems.
The outer lens is from a front loader washing machine (an LG if I’m not mistaken) and he 3D printed the ‘HAL9000’ sign. The inside electronics include the color changing LED, an Arduino that he coded to work with the key pad and LED, fans on the back to keep him cool, various resistors, diodes, buses, etc., and the battery to power everything. He did all the work himself despite the fact that my soldering is better (not so humble brag). Everything else is either paint, stickers, or duct tape. This costume ended up being a bit heavier than he anticipated. I wore it when my EE’s back began to give him trouble, as did his brother. We were stopped for pictures often and HAL ended up being quite popular among the convention crowd. The pictures below show the guts of the build and if you click here, you can see him in action.
I hope you enjoyed the update. Also, my workshop went well and I will keep writing. Apparently I’m not completely terrible.
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