Lots of progress photos for Dexter Starfighter’s ED-E build. The body/head is essentially a HDPE milk jug, 3D printed parts and foam mat pieces glued with contact cement, portions covered with craft foam and seams covered with air drying foam clay, primed, and painted. There are also some 3D printed connectors that go inside the “head” and at the “neck” to keep everything mounted and steady. We used the milk jug because it was the right size, approximately the right shape, the bottom of the jug already had a “grill” like look similar to the ED-E robot face, and it was free – since it would have been recycling/garbage otherwise. In order to assist with reinforcing the body1 , we cut a second jug and inserted most of it into the outside body. One downside to the jug is that HDPE is slick and doesn’t really take paint, glue, or even contact cement particularly well. Over Maker Faire weekend the paint started to fleck off in places. I think the size and shape is great – but that perhaps we would be better off covering it in paper mache and then painting and gluing onto that.
The old ED-E body was roughly the size of a tennis ball2 and the new one significantly roomier for the electronics. The PVC pipe had some holes drilled into it and was held at the right height using a zip tie. It held up really well all weekend and was apparently more comfortable than a shoulder-mounted robot, but it was a fair bit more to carry around. We’re working on some wheel based designs – and I even bought an IV stand off Craigslist for $10 to potentially use as a base for next year. 3
This year we opted to really focus on the “cosplay” elements of our project, making ED-E much larger and designing custom PIP-Boys. The PIP-Boy isn’t screen accurate, has an olive-green body which is more reminiscent of the early video games, and is still missing several of the greebles… but I really couldn’t be happier with how it came together and turned out. We were easily recognizable as Fallout vault dwellers everywhere we went.
While I did design this model entirely from scratch, I did take inspiration from various photographs from the show, game, and other 3D models out there. In particular, I liked the models from YTec3D, the official Bethesda props, and some of the features I noticed from various Etsy sellers.
I’d designed the PIP-Boy case to have a lot of interior space and specific cutouts that should work well for adding LED’s and real buttons and knobs later. I learned a lot from the Raptor FX guys about building with craft foam and foaming TPU, so I think the next iteration will include 3D printed cuffs and/or a buckle-based attachment system.
Fallout Cosplay