Team Builds a Replica of The Force Awakens Luggabeast
Did you know you can meet a replica of the rancor from Return of the Jedi? It’s true. The massive creation makes appearances at various conventions around the country. Affectionately named Roxy the Rancor, the life-size beast weighs 700 pounds and is 17 feet long. And now, she has a friend who will also be appearing at conventions: a luggabeast!
The creators of Roxy have made a replica of the luggabeast seen in The Force Awakens. It’s the creature carrying Teedo — you know, the alien Rey saved BB-8 from. The luggabeast replica will make its debut at MegaCon in Orlando, Florida over Memorial Day weekend. This creature weighs 450 pounds and is eight feet tall. Rick Bohler and Erik Hollander of Pizzazz Scenic Contractors created the luggabeast; they invested 320 hours in sculpting and another 160 hours of painting. They told io9 they used materials such as “EPS sculpting foam, select woods, fiberglass, PVC, miscellaneous fabrics, steel, tons of found items.”
The luggabeast will be available for photo ops, so this is perfect for Rey cosplayers and their BB-8s.
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, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, 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 is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
