Wall-E

Nike offering Custom Made Sneakers Named NIKEID

2008-12-24T10:44:00.001-08:00

Nike is offering NIKEID service on their website.

First off, let me say that I in no way am promoting Nike above any other shoe.

Although I have owned many pairs of Nike's over the years, I currently don't, BUT with this new service I may be interested!

In a world of "options", "mods" and personalization, this is really neat.

They allow you to take a basic show design, and work with the materials to choose the colors you like.

They also allow you to put a 10 Character name on the shoe, as well as a 1 or 2 digit number on the back if you so chose.

I designed one for free and to my surprise, they have a "Save as Desktop" feature that allows you to name your show and save the style as a desktop for your computer.

OK, so the average $140 price tag is steep, but come on, this is cool!

I would have liked to see a few more design options other than color, but they do allow you to change the material on a couple parts of the shoe.

I may make a few more desktops before the day is over.

Wall-E 3 Disc Special Edition Review by The Wall-E Builders Group

2008-12-20T03:18:00.001-08:00

Well I finally got to sit down a finish the first DVD of the Wall-E 3-Disc Special Edition DVD.

For those of you who purchased the single DVD, I'm sure you are well pleased and found you got your money's worth!

I saw the single DVD at some places for $14.

One thing I've noticed about a lot of the Disney DVD's lately is, they seem to be releasing at $16-$24 at most retail stores.

So, on the fist DVD we got to see the animated short "Burn-E", and the animated short "Presto", both were great!

But there was also a short sneak preview of the new attraction "Wall-E's Tour of the Universe - Wall-E takes you on a real ride through space"...Sweet!

Looks like fun!

They showed some very nice images from telescopes and the Hubble.

Not exactly sure how it's going to work, but it looks like a lot of fun. I'm sure it's going to be a big winner!

There were also a couple deleted scenes included on the DVD which I found really neat.

The final two things on DVD 1 are the animation sound design: building worlds from the sound up. Super documentary of the legendary sound designer Ben Burtt shares the secrets of creating the sounds of Wall-E.

We all know and love Ben from Star Wars, and his awesome design of the language of R2-D2.

I am also a member of the R2 Builder's Group for a few years now, and building my own R2-D2, so I really admire Ben Burtt, and found the fact that he was involved in this project to be a BIG selling point of the movie to me.

Of course he did far more in Star Wars than just design R2's speech...who would of ever thought you got a Laser Blaster sound from a slinky??

And the last feature I have yet to enjoy, is the Audio commentary with Director Andrew Stanton.

I just need to find the time to pull that one off, then I will post about it.

All in All the first DVD has been great and I am very happy with it!

I threw disc number 2 of the Wall-E 3-Disc Special Edition in and watched "The Pixar Story" By Leslie Iwerks.

This documentary made by an award winning filmmaker tells the story of the beginnings of Pixar Animation.

I have to say first off, I love documentaries to begin with.

So I can't really say whether this is something that you will enjoy if you don't normally watch them.

But I found it very interesting and entertaining.

They talk about the very beginnings and the relationship between Pixar and Disney, as well as their break up and reunion.

They also really dig into the workings and personal stories of some of the Directors and how they developed their skills and movies over the years, as well as some of the trials and tribulations they had to overcome to become what they are today.

I highly recommend this to anyone who is unfamiliar with the background of Pixar and get a taste of who they are.

A new found respect for them is what I walked away with after watching this special!

For those of you who do not have the second DVD...find someone who does and watch this with them!

I finished watching the Additional deleted scenes, which was really cool. I especially like the fact that you can listen to Andrew Stanton's explanations in the Directors Narrative about why the scenes were deleted, or roles reversed.

The treasures and trinkets is a pretty cool selection of Wall-E shorts as well, although most of these have been on the internet for over a year now, it's nice to see them in full resolution.

We at The Wall-E Builder's Group currently have the largest selection of Wall-E videos, promo's and short's on the internet. Membership is free there, and you can check out the Video Archive.

I would have liked to see ALL of the shorts added to the set...considering there are far more than they show.

We have more in our archives than are located on the 3 Disc Special Edition.

Perhaps the Blu-Ray edition has more?

The BnL shorts were wonderful!

Again, not all of the BnL shorts were on here, but a lot I've never seen were!

Very cool!

I still have the "Lot's of Bots" story book to watch, which has 2 versions, an interactive, and a read along version.

And I still have to watch "The Making of..."

The last feature I checked out on Disc 2 was the Bot Files, where I discovered many NEW bots that wil have to be added to the website under "Friends of Wall-E"

There are MANY bots here that are worth noting, and for us crazed roboticists, building!

I hope that someone with the Blu-Ray version will share in their viewing experience and what it has that the 3 Disc Special Edition is lacking.

Another interesting thing to note...

I got mine from Amazon.com

While at Walmart yesterday, they had the 3-Disc Special Edition...but it was $10 MORE than I paid at Amazon.com!!

I can't believe that!

So...if you haven't got your copy yet...GO TO AMAZON.COM!!!

Wall-E 3 Disc Review by the Wall-E Builders Group-Photo-19

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Wall-E Breaks $500 Million Dollar Mark Worldwide!

2008-12-19T06:34:00.001-08:00

WALL•E has just broken the $500 million dollar mark worldwide. This is due to the late push from Japan, where WALL•E was released December 5th. In 3 months we’ll see just how well this paid off. I’m hoping for a 600+ million dollar run.

In the domestic side, ticket sales have halted for the last few months and WALL•E has apparently finished with a solid $223, 749, 872!

If it gets nominated for Best Picture that might just change… Right now WALL•E is the number one animated movie in terms of box-office (and reviews) in America, and it’s a safe bet it’ll stay that way!

DVD sales are going great, although Disney was a bit worried last week, but I think $153,806,557 is pretty amazing considering it’s the second top selling DVD of the year behind Iron Man.

Domestic: $223,749,872
Foreign: $278,945,725
Total: $502, 695, 597

The popularity of Wall-E is hanging in there as well!

We have had new members joining The Wall-E Builder's Group daily from around the world!

With nearly 2,500 members now and growing, nearly all joined within the last 6 months!

I believe that Wall-E will have the staying power of some of our most loved characters, right up there with E.T., R2-D2, Johnny 5...hmm, all of whom kind of look alike.

Coincidence? Or are we, as fans, attracted to a certain type of character just as we are actual actors and actresses?

Something to consider.

If you haven't got your Wall-E DVD yet...get it!

I found it at Walmart, but it was $10 MORE than on Amazon.com!

Wall-E Design to Fabrication Part 1 : The Wall-E Builder's Group

2008-12-13T03:51:00.001-08:00

I first heard of Wall-E in spring of 2007.

Like so many 'things' that come our way along the pipes of gossip, hearsay and just plain rumors, I was not impressed with what I had heard.

Being a member of the R2 Builder's group on Yahoo! Groups (making fanmade R2-D2's from Star Wars) for a while, and having started my own R2 unit, I was already in the middle of a robotics project that was all too time consuming for me to even consider another, so I dismissed the thoughts of Wall-E.

Some friends of mine happened to get the Ratatouille video game by Pixar / Disney, which came from the movie of the same name.

They had unlocked a secret 'video' on the game and shared it with me. It was a sneak peek of Wall-E the Movie.

I was amazed!

Here was this little robot (well, not that little we found out later), who seemed to be a mix of R2-D2 and Johnny 5 from Short Circuit, with a personality to match!

Hmmm....

It appeared to me at that time I was going to have to research this matter deeper.

So I immediately did some research of the net and found there was NOTHING to find.

So in October (on my birthday actually) of 2007 I created The Wall-E Builder's Group in Google Groups.

Why Google Groups you ask? Well, personally I didn't really care for the Google Groups format and control panel, BUT...I used Flickr, and Picasa and also Blogger, and they all seemed to work together without any extra effort...so I went that route.

Within a couple months we had grown to over 500 members!

I began taking screenshots from the video sneak peek, and started working on some dimensions.

Little by little information was released by Disney & Pixar about the film.

This information included video shorts, promotional videos, previews from the movie, stills, hi-res promo shots, etc...

We grabbed everything that was released!

We soon discovered that our group and what we planned on doing was much too big for the limitations of a Google or Yahoo! Group format...we were going to need a website!

So in early 2008 I started working with a few friends I made in the Group, Tinman and GuyofSound, whom both were very instrumental in the design and development of the much needed website.

By this time, with a month or two of opening the doors to the new website, the membership grew to over 1,000.

When we first set the website up, our Alexa ranking was 42 million. Our member grew in 6 months to over 2,400 members, and we climbed from being the 42 millionth website on the internet, to being in the top 300,000.

Not too shabby for a few months of existance!

Now that we had a website, and we had the people, we needed the numbers.

We spent those six months working from pictures, hi-res stills, movie promo shots, etc... trying to calculate the dimensions of Wall-E for building him.

With the help of some members who are in-the-know, we have developed a full set of dimensions, and we are currently building Wall-E from these dimensions.

I am going to continue to write articles, depicting the build, showing pictures and talking about some of the hurdles and pitfalls, as well as sharing news and updates from the website and Group.

My hope is that you will all find this information interesting, and hopefully even stop by the group website to check us out!

The membership there is FREE, and to register you simply pick a screen name, and give your birthday, and set your password...that's it! No long forms or gathering of personal info.

We have so many features, I will spare you the details, but will give you a quick rundown of some of the biggest features.

We currently have the BIGGEST collection of Wall-E videos, shorts, promo's and trailers found on the internet in our Video Archives, where you can also see videos from some of our members showing off thier builds, projects and goofing off.

We have a Download section FULL of designs, plans, pictures adn more, all of which are 100% FREE to download.

We have a group drawing section full of the Group drawings, which are updated weekly as we actually build and test deigns BEFORE posting the finished drawings, so members KNOW when they get a set of drawings from the site...these drawings will fit and work with previous parts.

And there is so much more!

Our group is deisgned for MORE than JUST Wall-E too...we have a Lego robotics builders section (which Nowpublic member Jmenomeno is the Modorator of), a Papercraft forum, a CAD forum and much, much more!

So check it out today at www.Wall-EBuilders.com

Stay tuned for Part 2 of Wall-e Design to Fabrication where I will share how we discovered some of the initial dimensions which helped me create the FIRST Wall-E part ever built buy a fan!

First Fanmade Wall-E From the Wall-E Builder's Group Completed!

2008-12-12T16:56:00.001-08:00

Well after months of design and building, the first fanmade Wall-E from The Wall-E Builder's Group (www.Wall-EBuilders.com) has been completed!

The member Elso-E joined The Wall-E Builder's Group in June, and was the Member of the month in November.

Elso-E built his Wall-E out of recycled cardboard, and hand painted the entire model with water paints.

It is nearly full size and took him approximately 6 months to build.

You can see his process from start to finish on his blog located here.

You can also see his profile and photo albums on The Wall-E Builder's Group website.

Elso-E has been created many drawings and tutorials for his awesome weathering techniques that can be used for any project. This tutorial can be found here.

If you happen to visit Elso-E's blog, be sure to tell him Lunk said Hi...

Full Size Chestplate Paper Prototype

2008-08-25T17:11:00.000-07:00

The chestplate works perfectly!

Now to do this again, but with the sheet aluminum!

PDA for Solar Displays

2008-08-25T13:43:00.000-07:00

Well I got two of these on ebay...I paid $15 for both and got FREE shipping!!!

1 was supposed to kind of work, and the other was broke.

Well after tearing them apart, I got both of them to work and hold a charge for days!!!!

They work great!

I plan on using 1 PDA in Wall-E to control the Solar Charge Level Meter, monitoring the batteries charge level and displaying the accurate charge level.

Also controlling the Solar Charge Panels in the Chest, making them deploy on command.

And I want it to also control the MP3 abilities of Wall-E's chestpanel.

I am going to make the buttons on the chestpaenl really work and control functions on the PDA.

Test Display from Paper

2008-08-25T13:39:00.000-07:00

Well I printed a prototype onto paper just to see how it would work. This is the Solar Charge Level Meter.

Nice fit into the frame...BUT, I don't think I will use this design because I need the entire chestplate to open.

Looks cool though...

Display Print Test #2

2008-08-25T13:37:00.000-07:00

Well I reprinted the display, into three layers, to test another way of having the display.

The first sheet is black, but it is translucent and light can shine through.

The second, or middle layer is solid black with cutouts for the display...this is to help prevent bleeding of light between the bars.

The final layer is the yellow translucent display.

When lit from the back, the yellow display shines through the black translucent coaver. When not lit, the display looks black.

Not too shabby...I don't know if I will go with this though because there is no way to make the low battery warning light flash red with the warning on it.

I may look into LCD...

Cutting the Chestplate

2008-08-24T17:31:00.000-07:00

Cutting the aluminum is really easy. Snip the left and right of the cutout, and cut lengthwise a few stronkes, then bend the metal back and forth and it will come right out.

Take your time cutting...just because the maker gave you 10 fingers, doesn't mean you should take a couple off.

A good shot of the metal after cut...hardly any scrap left over too!

Sheet Metal Chestplate

2008-08-24T17:27:00.000-07:00

My makeshift table.

I squared the sheet to the table

I penciled all the measurements FIRST! THEN after I checked and double checked I scribed them in...

Aluminum is not very forgiving :D

Here are some of the tools I gathered for cutting the metal...But then realized I didn't need them.

All I used to cut this was a razor knife (The light green one all the way to the left), and the Blue handled straight cutters right next to it.

The aluminum cuts real easy.

Paper Chestplate Prototype

2008-08-23T17:06:00.000-07:00

Well I'm ready to test out my chestplate design...so I made a paper miniature to check it out.

Came out great! Of course I cant refine it until I make the full size version.

I plan on making a full size poster board version before giong to the sheet metal. But it looks like this design will work!

Frame Faceplate Modification

2008-08-22T17:02:00.000-07:00

It has become apparent that a slight modification has to be made if the chestplate is going to be able to open.

By removing two parts of the front of the faceplate, this will allow for the chestpplate to open up.

Its a real simple mod, a couple cuts and a grind later and its done!

Display Screen

2008-08-21T16:59:00.000-07:00

I picked up this display screen from ebay, I am thinking of using the PDA to operate the functions I mentioned in my last post, but using this for the display because it's a nicer and bigger screen than the PDA screen.

Test Print Solar Charge Level Meter

2008-08-08T13:31:00.000-07:00

I printed the Solar Charge Level Meter onto clear overhead projector sheets to see what we could do with them.

Came out pretty good...It's nearly impossible to see when there is no backlight, but nice color when lit from behind. Of course, it's impossible to take a picture showing this :P

Here it is sized up with the welded frame. Perfect fit :D

Frame Painted

2008-08-07T13:25:00.000-07:00

Well I got the frame primered and painted today.

I used $1 per can primer, and simple $1 per can flat black over it. It looks great! Actually better than the pictures.

I have the 1:1 scale wastecube sitting in the middle of the frame for reference :D

The side shot here shows that there IS room to work with inside Wall-E, but not much...we are going to have to be very creative when working on design.

Wall-E Frame gets Welded

2008-08-03T13:22:00.000-07:00

Well I got the designs done for Wall-E's frame, and cut the parts for it from 3/4" galvanized steel. I know, I know, steel is heavy, galvanized is hard to weld...BUT, I already had it in the crawler, so...I used it.

I cut all the parts and sent them to my son-in-law to weld. I let him use my brand new MIG welder.

He got the frame together in no time flat!

Very strong frame too!

I will be able to really torque on this thing with my powerful wheelchair motors, and not have to worry about it.

Mock up Faceplates on Cap

2008-05-10T16:13:00.000-07:00

I made some mock up faceplates to illustrate the cap framing.

I may cut the speaker by hand out of sheet aluminum.

I'm going to try and get the evac door folded and cut this week.

Now that I have the front done, I can start working on the sides, back and the hinge I created...which looks like it is going to work GREAT!

New front

2008-05-10T13:17:00.000-07:00

Well I re-built the front panel already. After getting it done and doing some measuring, it just wasn't correct. And after some closer examination of the hi-res shots I have, I noticed that the bottom of the cap does not extend across the frame, so I got rid of those end pieces.

Here is my evac door (unfolded and uncut) to check scale...and its a perfect fit. It's 19" from the bottom of the evac door to the top of the Cap frame. And it's 19" from left to right of the frame, and front to back.

Here is a good shot that shows there will be a bit of room inside for mechanics.

I watched the evacuation series a few more times, and the scale looks good! When the cube is getting spit out you can see there is clearance on both sides. Approximately the same that I have here.

Wastecube to Frame Scale

2008-05-10T08:26:00.000-07:00

For anyone who has seen the promotional videos, sneak peaks and trailers, we all know that the only "true" and sure measurement we actually have IS the size of the wastecube. This is why last year when these trailers FIRST came out, and I watched them again and again realizing we had but a few clues as to Wall-E's dimensions, I decided to build the ONE THING we KNEW the size of...the wastecube.

Here we see that all of the measuremetns I cam up with from all of the hours of checking picture adter picture and checking and double checking measurements against each other, the dimensions I came up with and that I am using to build from are very close to being accurate!

When you take into consideration that the wastecube I made "IS THE CORRECT AND ACCURATE MEASUREMENTS FROM THE MOVIE", and compare it with the dimensions I calculated and built my frame from, they are a close match!

Wall-E will be spitting out this wastecube in no time!

Front of Cap

2008-05-10T07:59:00.000-07:00

I got the front part of the cap on, and I am just about to start working on the sides and back.

I used the same process of drilling small holes for the threaded rod, and bigger opposing holes so the socket would fit. When I cut the threaded rod, I leave about 1/2" for the nuts on either end.

Although this material is stronger than steel, it is still made from a poly-resin fiberglass, so you have to be careful when applying torque to the nuts. I used nuts with locking washers built on. When I am done with the frame I will use an adhesive to ensure the nuts don't come lose.

Here is a shot of the cap upside down with the front on.

Evac Door

2008-05-09T18:28:00.000-07:00

Here I started cutting the metal with snips. It actually cuts a lot easirt than I anticipated!

All the shavings...

I trimmed the trim for folding.

Wall-E's evacuator door is ready for the bender!

Evac Door

2008-05-09T18:25:00.000-07:00

I have a bunch of steel in the basement from a couple dryers I saved...it's perfect!

Following the drawings I made, I drew them out on the dryer door with a marker.

I left a couple tabs for folding so I can have a nice edge.

I am going to cut and foold these parts down to give the impression it is thick steel thats been pressed.

Frame

2008-05-09T18:13:00.000-07:00

Here is a close up of the corner braces. If you really wanted to tighten things up, you could epoxy the braces before you put the screw in the pre-drilled holes and clamp it over night.

You see the double front 19" frame bar. This will make more sense when I get the bottom half of the Cap done. Remember, Wall-E's frame is really in 2 parts...the Base (where the tracks, and evacuator reside), and the Cap (where magically his arm mechanism, electronics and head along with all his solar arrays reside).

This is the top of the Cap.

This is a front view of Wall-E.

New Wall-E Frame

2008-05-09T18:07:00.000-07:00

I drilled 5/16" holes for the threaded 5/16" rod I used to secure the frame together with, and I also drilled 3/4" holes so my socket would fit down inside to tighten the nut with locking washer.

Make sure you wear a mask and gloves and saftey gogles when drilling or cutting this stock...it's fiberglass and nasty stuff if it gets into your eyes or lungs or into your skin.

It sees to be fine afterwords, it's just during the cutting it's not good to be around.

I also used 1 1/2" x 5/8" corner braces for extra support. It really didn't seem to need it, but because you are using threaded rod, the through posts want to wiggle a little, so the brackets help keep everything square.

Wall-E

Nike offering Custom Made Sneakers Named NIKEID

Photos

The Wall-E Builder's Nike Custom Shoe-Photo-01

Wall-E 3 Disc Special Edition Review by The Wall-E Builders Group

Photos

Wall-E 3 Disc Review by the Wall-E Builders Group-Photo-19

Wall-E Breaks $500 Million Dollar Mark Worldwide!

Photos

Wall-E Design to Fabrication Part 1 : The Wall-E Builder's Group

First Fanmade Wall-E From the Wall-E Builder's Group Completed!

Full Size Chestplate Paper Prototype

PDA for Solar Displays

Test Display from Paper

Display Print Test #2

Cutting the Chestplate

Sheet Metal Chestplate

Paper Chestplate Prototype

Frame Faceplate Modification

Display Screen

Test Print Solar Charge Level Meter

Frame Painted

Wall-E Frame gets Welded

Mock up Faceplates on Cap

New front

Wastecube to Frame Scale

Front of Cap

Evac Door

Evac Door

Frame

New Wall-E Frame