Design Considerations and Planning

Cliche du jour:  Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail

I've spent countless hours pouring over information provided by the R2-D2 Builders Club to see what it's really going to take to accomplish this and how.  The process is daunting, but, like the riddle goes... "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."  Translation:  If I think about the entire build at once, my brain will explode, so I just have to break this down into parts/stages/phases/whatever. 

For each step along the way, the following questions have to be answered:

• Should this part be built-from-scratch, purchased / CNC-ordered (having someone make it for me), or do I find some substitute and make it work?
• What should this part be made from?  Wood, aluminum, styrene, resin, or...?  I'm not going to try and keep it all one material, but for each decide what will work best.  Considerations are cost, weight, strength, how easy the material is to work with, availability, and ultimate appearance.

I do have some things going for me.  I'm not COMPLETELY inexperienced with building things, especially when I have some guides to go by.  I have friends -- well, friend -- who is an old-school DIY'er, who can offer advice and assistance.  I took basic Engineering courses in college (I started out as an Aerospace Engineering major before I found my true calling in Computer Science) with a healthy dose of blueprint-reading.  Plus, it's not like they sell full-sized working replicas of the little guy -- and, even if they did, they'd be big bucks I'm sure -- so, I've got the motivation to see this through.   Lastly, I have the assistance of the Builders Club, which is the only way I'll be getting through this!

More motivation... chicks dig R2.

I do have some things working against me.  A lot of the mechanical "stuff" is a little new to me... neither my IT nor my software experience had much to do with motors and servos. Like so many others, cash doesn't flow quite as freely as it once did.  I've got other commitments that cut into available time.  Plus, I've had a bad habit of diving in to hobbies but giving up after awhile (though, again, I'm a lot more motivated with this than anything I've done in ages!). 

So, I've raided the local Office Depot and made up a project three-ring-binder with page protectors and section tabs to help keep every organized... which is better than my usual pile-of-papers-on-the-couch filing system I normally use.  So, it's time to get started.  Phase 1 will be... the inner framework!  Seems like the most logical place to start.  Stay tuned!