{"id":1695,"date":"2014-09-01T02:44:20","date_gmt":"2014-09-01T02:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/?p=1695"},"modified":"2014-09-01T02:49:19","modified_gmt":"2014-09-01T02:49:19","slug":"cotswold-collectibles-deluxe-midnight-mission-set","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/?p=1695","title":{"rendered":"Cotswold Collectibles – Deluxe Midnite Mission Set"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"cots-cover-image-midnight-mission\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At the GI Joe Convention in Dallas in April<\/a><\/strong> I met Greg Brown of Cotswold Collectibles<\/a><\/strong>. I had sent him some of my 3D print samples some months earlier and he expressed interest in doing some project work together for Cotswold Collectibles<\/strong>, which had recently begun to issue mail-out catalogs in full color again, featuring some Adventure Team-themed outfits and full sets<\/p>\n

He showed me plans he had for a complete stealth set which harkens back to the good old days of the GI Joe Adventure Team<\/strong>. Here was a modern take on the Spy Island<\/strong> set, and it included a black and silver version of my AT Surveillance Drone<\/a><\/strong> which I had designed last year and 3D printed. The drone featured in one of my diorama entries at the Convention, seen here:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1174\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The drone, printed in white, hovers above the scene, suspended by a thread on an armature.<\/p>\n

I began work immediately. First, the construction of my drone was a bit flimsy, especially the working camera head which pivots around a hub using a tenuous connector that was easily broken and came loose easily. I opted to fix that by using a screw. Second, the struts that hold the central hub to the outer ring were individually printed and had to be glued together in another relatively tenuous connection.\"at-surveillance-prototype-3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My first improvement was to combine the three struts with the central hub for a single, strong part. Then I created notches in the ring and pins in the struts so the hub part could snap to the body accurately and strongly. The rest remained relatively unchanged; the legs (not seen in this photo) which form the bottom segments of each strut hinge down as landing gear.<\/p>\n

But the drone had to fit into an existing Cotswold backpack which Greg sent me. I found that I had to scale the drone down to 75% of the original. This meant that moving parts may not work, since tolerances at that scale would be different.<\/p>\n

\"cots-drone-scaling-test-01\"<\/p>\n

(I test print in neon yellow to make sure I don’t confuse them with final parts. And I have a lot of neon yellow with not much use for it.)<\/em><\/p>\n

To my surprise, I printed three test drones. One at 50%, one at 66.66% and one at 75% of the original size. To my utter shock and astonishment, each one functioned perfectly when printed. Even the 50% scaled version had working legs that folded without an issue.<\/p>\n

The 75% version fit the backpack perfectly.<\/p>\n

\"cots-drone-fitting-backpack-01\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I began printing a couple of test models, sent them to Greg for approval, then began printing in earnest.<\/p>\n

Here, I assemble the drones:<\/p>\n

The bodies are split into an upper half and a lower half. The lower half has spaces for the legs to hinge down.
\n\"cots-drone-leg-assembly-01\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Small pegs align the upper and lower halves. The legs are held in by square blocks that, when pushed into place, form a perfect hinge space.\"cots-drone-leg-assembly-02\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The pegs are put in place, and the top glued to the bottom, clamped down by six strong clamps.\"cots-drone-body-clamping-01\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Next the hub gets snapped in place and glued.
\n\"cots-drone-hub-assembly-01\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Then a small screw is used to screw the camera head to the hub.\"cots-drone-camera-assembly-01\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Then (not shown here) the camera is placed in the camera head by friction so it can swivel on its axis freely.<\/p>\n

Then the repulsors are glued in place and a jet vane is glued to the top of the hub.
\n\"cots-drone-complete-01\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And after a heck of a lot of work, I had 30 ready to go:
\n\"cots-drone-all-done-01\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Then I had to design the arm controllers. I had a simple idea in mind and wanted it to be a single piece. But the design made me want an accent color so I made the control pad red on a silver cuff that can snap to a GI Joe’s dressed arm.<\/p>\n

\"cots-drone-controllers-all-done-01\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The space below the control pad in red is reserved for a sticker which will show the view as seen from the drone’s camera.<\/p>\n

So here are some pictures Greg posted featuring the finished prototype:<\/p>\n

\"cots-midnight-mission-set-01\"<\/a> \"cots-midnight-mission-outfit-05\"<\/a> \"cots-midnight-mission-outfit-04\"<\/a> \"cots-midnight-mission-outfit-03\"<\/a> \"cots-midnight-mission-gear-01\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here is the catalog, which I got in the mail a couple of weeks back:<\/p>\n

\"cots-catalog\"<\/a><\/p>\n

P.S. I am currently at work on my second Cotswold set. News on that as I am allowed to post it. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the GI Joe Convention in Dallas in April I met Greg Brown of Cotswold Collectibles. I had sent him some of my 3D print samples some months earlier and he expressed interest in doing some project work together for … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1695"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1695"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1742,"href":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1695\/revisions\/1742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}