Completed New Year Mystery Project

A few days ago I had mentioned that I was working on a little mystery project for R2. Because R2 is scheduled to visit the Children's Hospital again tomorrow, I decided that he would help ring in the new year a little early as only he can. This project is not for any particular New Year's Eve celebration he'll be attending, it's just planned for the hospital visit.

After testing how to use a can of compressed air with a couple of different party horns, I found the most effective method was to attach the horn directly to the can. I did this with a nail, as I showed earlier. How will I mount the can in the proper place inside the droid? Duct tape! It only needs to hold for a couple of hours for the hospital visit, and I'm far too lazy to come up with a more elaborate solution.



Well, you can't have R2 in a celebratory mood without a party hat, right? I picked up some poster board and gift wrapping paper, and prepared to go to work.



I want the hat to be 12" tall and have a 12" diameter at the base. Applying the Pythagorean theorem and some radian-based geometry yields an angle of about 160 degrees, and a radius of 13.4".




I debated over whether to tape the poster board into the cone shape, or glue it. In the end, I decided on tape, in case I need to undo the cone for some reason.



I'm happy with the test fit.



I cut the gift wrapping paper just a little bit larger, and also taped it in place on the poster board cone.



And a little blue and white ribbon to match R2's color scheme for the top of the hat. Later, I stapled some elastic to act as a "chin strap" to help keep the hat on.




Finally, I programmed a "Happy New Year" message on my Ben/Jason/Dave top front logic board. Time to try it out!



Hopefully this will work as planned for tomorrow's hospital visit.