My recreation of Dr. Theopolis from the 1979-1981 TV Show “Buck Rogers in the 25 Century“

It felt like a modern recreation would be the perfect personal assistant, so I tore apart an Alexa and integrated that (with a custom wake-word! Check out the video below)

Working on Robby the Robot has really elevated my CAD skills, so that part wasn’t too much of a challenge (I mean, he’s just a circle!). The tougher parts were creating the translucent pieces of plastic for his head (since 3D prints are practically opaque). For those parts, I used my Orange 4K SLA printer. And SLA printer can print almost perfectly transparent pieces. I hand-tinted some clear resin for the eyes. They also have a reflective prismatic pattern that only an SLA printer has the resolution to duplicate.

I re-drew the back plate behind his facial features using reference screenshots from the show. But what to mount it on? Maybe print it on glossy photo paper and glue it to wood or cardboard? I wanted something thin, strong, and glossy. My solution was to print the image on transfer paper with dye-sub ink and then heat-press it onto a sublimation-friendly piece of glossy white metal. I then used metal shears to hand-cut out the circle. Then I had to carefully drill holes for the mounting posts where all the LEDs would go. A little more elbow-grease for wiring it all together, gluing, and painting, and volia!

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