TARS is a former Marine Corps robot and member of the Endurance crew in Interstellar. The robot used in the film weighed almost 200 pounds, but builder Iain Heath’s version of TARS is much lighter so he can wear it around conventions. You may know Heath for his LEGO work (he goes by the name Ochre Jelly), but now, you’ll remember him for this creation. He built a life-size costume replica of TARS for the recent Emerald City Comicon. The endeavor garnered the “One to Watch” award at the costume contest and attracted crowds.
Heath documented the three month construction process in the above video and shared some build details with me:
Requiring over 100 man hours to construct, the replica weighs 40 lbs (a mere fifth of the one in the movie) and uses two iPads to recreate TARS’ computer readouts. To allow the operator to interact with their surroundings, the aluminum-clad wooden frame includes a camera, LCD screen, audio amplifier, and head set.
Wow. I hope to see TARS at a convention this year.
Keep with Heath’s projects – LEGO and otherwise – on Flickr.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, or even use Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell with Google Hangouts On-Air is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
