WALL-E Builders Club

Pixar's Feature Films WALL•E
#41

Here is a link to the current issue of MAKE magazine, where one of the Builder’s groups was supposed to have a writeup. Here is one about Wall-E:

makezine.com/20/made_wall_e/

But that doesn’t get you anywhere, so maybe you have to pay a subscription, which is $10 for 4 online issues. I just want the one article for the one issue, and am not willing to shell out that much unless it’s one great article.

Edit next day: Well, it’s at the local supermarket. It’s buried in a section described as “snapshots from …backyard technology.” And it’s only 1 page, with half of that a nice photo of Wall-E against a clay rubble background at some construction site. Here are some quotes from the half page remaining:

"Before the …film…premiered, replicas of (Wall-E) were already showing up on the internet. That’s because at least one replica builders’ group had a head start… Scott Washburn explains: “I…posted it at the end of Sept '07…such a positive response that …on Oct 8th (2007) I created the Wall-E Builders Club” …grown to nearly 700 passionate (members)…sometimes meet at nerdy conventions.

…grown men (almost exclusively)…

“He’s a very sympathetic character” says Guy Vardaman, a web developer from Burbank, Calif. “…innocent looking…but he also looks …rugged…tank-tread drive and all of those scrapes and dents… realistic…you can believe he’d actually work”

Maybe that’s what launched a thousand Wall-E’s, he looks easy to make, at least as a static replica. (One’s) with a working drive, sound effects, and radio control, are harder to come by.

“M(ine) will be radio controlled, so he’ll move around on his treads,” says William Miyamoto, 42, a stay-at-home dad and actor from Los Angeles. “I plan on articulating his head and arms… also a sound system…”

The club is collaborating to design a track drive that members can replicate. …myriad of benefits to working in a group, such as the pooling of talent, expertise, and purchasing power…trading…sharing of parts.

“…(After) years…you can run out of steam. The encouragement of the group can make all the difference.” --article by Gareth Branwyn

That is pretty much it. The whole issue is 178 pages and is stuffed with all sorts of projects. Most of the projects are shown with at least some guidelines on how to actually ‘make’ something. Not so with this Wall-E article. There are also segments on ‘kid-friendly projects’. Each issue in the store is $15, and is much cheaper online

#42

Ah, well that’s alright. I actually met the several of the original designers of the Disney-Pixar promotional WALL·E at the Maker Faire anyway. They were really cool, we shared a bunch of design plans, and they were impressed with our group. Thanks!

#43

Oooh, that’s interesting. Was there only one promotional Wall-E ever made? I saw it at the L.A. and London premieres, with a guy in the background visible operating from some sort of controller on top of a trunk, which you can see right here: metacafe.com/watch/1496708/w … in_london/ The animatronic Wall-E was about 4 feet high and looked a bit bigger than I was expecting. Is this the one now being used at Disneyland? Or did they make copies for the 3 other parks?

If you scroll up this page a few posts, you will see that I was only a few miles from this San Mateo event and lost track of it timewise, dang it.

#44

It’s my understanding that there is only one promotional robot built by Disney’s Imagineers, although considering their marketing funds they could’ve built more. WALL·E is a pretty huge robot as seen in the film, as he stands only a foot or so smaller than the humans. I personally like building him at a smaller, more conventional level, since he’s more accessible that way, but your mileage may vary.

Don’t feel too bad about missing us at the Maker Faire. We had so much fun in May, we’re planning to do it again in 2010! We’ve got a bunch more ideas like a Steampunk WALL·E and an EVE dirigible, so please stop by!

#45

This stuff is so hardcore, I love it! I’d like to see a nice Up fanbase make some Up stuff, like the bird on the mantle or a SoA model. Love your AUTO, it’s awesome!

#46

Thanks for your kind response! I know that while I am personally a huge fan of WALL·E, my true passion is building anything PIXAR related. I usually post my stuff on the wall-ebuilders.com website. But just today I created my own group on Flickr for all PIXAR related builds. So let me be the first to welcome you to the new group and please stop by!
www.flickr.com/groups/buildpixar

#47

This would honestly be the perfect time to join considering I have a class based on creating 3 dimensional art in the spring, so building stuff would fit into that very nicely! Maybe we could talk about stuff I could work on or something. Very cool!

#48

Excellent! I’m always available to work on new projects and to help out so please keep me posted.

#49

Matthew,

Glad to see you guys are still out there.
We had thought Bruce went on to bigger and better pastures.

The old web address pointed to his latest venture for a while.

There is plenty of room on the internet for more than one WALL-E site.

The WALL-E Forum is another Great Site http://walleforum.com

What the different sites have to offer varies quite a bit.
Some have more members than others while some have more activity.
Some are just fan sites.

The Original WALL-E Builders Club on Yahoo Groups [url]http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/wallebuilders/[/url] is free to join and we have dimensional drawings to help anyone build their own WALL-E as well as many members with experience in prop and Droid building to bounce questions off of so prior knowledge isn’t an issue either…

We have had 12 members so far build WALL-E replica’s out of many types of materials.
Two different schools are using our drawings to teach shop classes regarding manufacturing techniques and robotics.

Our article in MAKE Magazine was a nice tip of the hat to our Builders Club and I thank Gareth Branwyn for the interview.

If anyone wants to build their own WALL-E please feel free to come and join the fun.

Scot Washburn
Founder / Owner
The Original WALL-E Builders Club

#50

Hey Scot!
Great to hear from you, as usual, and also see that our friends from the OWB group are also doing fine. we’ve had some restructuring problems, but nothing too serious, thankfully. How was your winter break, did you get a lot of building done?
I agree, I love how even though WALL•E was just one film by PIXAR, it has made such a big impact on people’s lives and there’s so many devoted fans out there.
I do visit WALL-E Forum, as well as The WALL•E fan club on deviantart.com and it’s nice to see so much fanart and fan builds coming from the film. Your site has some of the best WALL•E builds currently online, but I’m slightly more drawn towards the other characters in the film too (M-O, Eve, Auto, REM-E), which why I really like how our group. Since our founder Jawa Lunk is attempting to construct every single robot in WALL•E, it’s incredibly easy to get help no matter who you are building.
Pardon my enthusiasm, but I am just so amazed by everything that’s come out of both The WALL•E Builders.com and The OWB. After the Maker Faire, I was encouraged by so many visiting PIXAR employees, that I sent off some promotional stuff from our group’s Fllickr site ([url]http://www.flickr.com/wall-ebuilders[/url]) to PIXAR Animation Studios, and briefly mentioned how both our group and the Yahoo WALL•E building group were huge fans of the film. They seemed pretty impressed, and thanked us both for our work.

Anyway, good luck with future builds!
Your friend from the Other Group,
Matthew Ebisu
Public Representative of http://www.wall-ebuilders.com

#51

Yes we did do some building and we are currently posting updated blueprints of WALL-E to The Original WALL-E Builders Club as we are settling on what we will consider as the official scale.
We like the idea of being able to drive him through doorways.

Nice to hear that you had such a responce from Pixar.
We also have been in contact with them since May of 2008 and we send photos of our members builds to them as they are posted to our club.

tdri; one of our members and the first person to ever build a replica WALL-E has already built M-O and Auto as well as Hal Roach.
His videos can be seen here.
[url]http://www.youtube.com/user/tdri[/url]

Just a heads up.
You may want to have Bruce post this on his front page.
Its best not to upset your relationship with Disney/Pixar.

“Copyright 2008 Disney/Pixar. WALL-E is a trademark of The Walt Disney Company. The WALL-E Builder Group is not affiliated with Pixar or The Walt Disney Company.”

Keep us posted on your progress.

Scot Washburn
Founder / Owner
The Original WALL-E Builders Club
[url]http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/wallebuilders/[/url]

#52

Here is our latest WALL-E Build.

Tom Jozwiac constructed him out of MDF and resin.
Here he is before weathering.

And after.

Tom should have him running soon.

I’ll post another update when he does.

Scot Washburn
Owner / Founder
The Original WALL-E Builders Club
[url]http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/wallebuilders/[/url]

#53

Here is the latest updat on the Original WALL-E Builders Club progress.

First is Clay’s head movement progress.
[url]Video_022110_001.3g2 - YouTube

As well as Tom’s rubber tracks.

[url]Full size Wall E rubber tracks - YouTube

I hope you like the video’s.

Scot

#54

WOW, that is simply amazing. Your group always continues to produce some of the internet’s best WALL-E robots online. Very good work!

By the way, we ended up taking down our WALL-Ebuilders.com website, after experiencing numerous technical problems, error messages and thousands of dollars in managing costs. So congratulations, your group is now the only site completely dedicated to building WALL-E Robots! Just thought you might take pleasure in hearing this.

#55

Thank you for the complement toward Clay’s WALL-E progress.
He’s done amazing things with his servo work.

I’m not sure what you mean by taking pleasure in hearing Bruce took down his site.
I know he spent alot of money and time into constructing it.
I have always said that there is enough room on the internet for more than one WALL-E Club / Group.

Scot

[quote=“Pixar Builder”]
WOW, that is simply amazing. Your group always continues to produce some of the internet’s best WALL-E robots online. Very good work!

By the way, we ended up taking down our WALL-Ebuilders.com website, after experiencing numerous technical problems, error messages and thousands of dollars in managing costs. So congratulations, your group is now the only site completely dedicated to building WALL-E Robots! Just thought you might take pleasure in hearing this.[/quote

#56

Thanks Scot.
I always imagined that while there was a sort of creative jealousy coming from our group as a few of the builders on the Original WALL-E Builders group would sometimes post on our site (I mean, building WALL-E’s size according to his ratio to a Rubick’s cube? Ingenious!). But it was good kind of jealousy, as it would always inspire our group to keep pursuing, and become more imaginative and inventive. Our group may be gone, but we had a fun time while it lasted. And I personally wish you and the Original WALL-E Builders Group many successful years of creativity and building.

Since wall-ebuilders.com dispersed, I’ve been working on a small project of mine called D.I.Y. PIXAR, just some place people can post any kind of builds PIXAR related. I was hoping you might please give me permission to post a link to the Original WALL-E Builders on my “Additional Groups” links page, to direct anyone interested in building WALL-E to go and check out your group too. I’d really appreciate it, and I know it would be very beneficial to some of my members.

[quote=“Pixar Builder”]
WOW, that is simply amazing. Your group always continues to produce some of the internet’s best WALL-E robots online. Very good work!

By the way, we ended up taking down our WALL-Ebuilders.com website, after experiencing numerous technical problems, error messages and thousands of dollars in managing costs. So congratulations, your group is now the only site completely dedicated to building WALL-E Robots! Just thought you might take pleasure in hearing this.
[/quote[/quote]

#57

That’s very sad to hear, and quite a loss for the Wall-E community. Weren’t there something like 1000 members of that group? I remember something like 700 for the Original group. It seems like the similar names caused me confusion too, especially at the Maker Faire. Perhaps a donation of just 10 bucks per member could have saved it, altho some people here howl or shrink into a dark corner over $10-20 lousy bucks at the very mention of ‘share the costs’.

Yeah, somehow the exact(?) names made me feel that there might be some resentment or jealousy going on, but just not ever stated. It just seemed that that might be going on, but then I’m sorta out of the loop here in this demilitarized zone in between the two groups. Yeah, that’s me you can see with your up-to-specs Wall-E binoculars squating in my foxhole with the hubcap on. All I got is this connection to the internet with my upgraded tin can and wire.

#58

Thanks for your concern, DarkHandOfSigourneyWeaver. I think as our site creator, Jawa Lunk, told me, near the end, the site had been experiencing several technical issues and he was losing thousands of dollars just trying to keep it alive to the very end. All of us in the group are very disappointed to let it go, it was like our home for building.

It’s not a total loss, however. Lunk, thankfully, managed to save all of the Wall-Ebuilders.com information from the site, and I’m going to add it to D.I.Y. PIXAR as soon as I have the chance.

But, there was never any resentment between the groups. As Scot said, there’s always room for more than one WALL-E Building website online.

#59

There is a new movie out this season, the time of year when the very best movies are released, to vie for the Top 10 or 15 titles. I’ve seen a few of these, Moneyball and Ides of March. One of the new ones is a cinematographic treat, Hugo, based on a 2008 book by Brian Selznick, who mostly illustrates. It has a big star cast, is long, is not animated, in English, set in Paris in the 30’s at the cavernous train station. The child star was well selected, as was the rest of the cast. Spoiler Alert! It is now necessary to discuss some essential parts of the movie to show why it’s relevant to a Builder’s thread!

The movie is about a boy who lives within the walls of the station, and it’s a mystery as to how and why, but he seems to be preoccupied by the station’s huge clocks, from an insiders perspective. He has been deprived of an education so he must learn by stealing books from a bookstore and the same goes for food and ‘spare parts’. It seems his father was a watchmaker and Hugo inherited from him a most interesting device: an automaton, similar to mechanical fortune tellers at carnivals and boardwalks, but much more advanced. So now you finally see why I decided to include this within the Builder’s thread. The automaton’s details are exquisitely drawn out in a booklet and lovingly restored by the watchmaker and his son, Hugo. When the booklet is revealed, it is in the hands of a former movie maker who flips thru it: there are about 100 pictures of the automaton, one on each page, all slightly different, superimposable, and flipping thru 100 pages causes the appearance of motion. This is one of the secrets of the movie, and I shalln’t reveal it.

This new movie’s relation to our Wall-E is glaring. A two dimensional world, in a series of pictures, can form a movie and this suggests a real three-dimensional creation. What is fantastic here, is that the creation is more than pictures in a laboratory notebook, and it can draw, and it can draw pictures that could be used in a movie. Of course, the automaton has no creative abilities, it draws only what it has been programmed to draw: from a vertebral-like column of metal instructional plates or disks. What it draws is a step to revealing the movie’s secret. There is nothing untrue in this fantasy film, it could all be real; it’s a magical movie that doesn’t use magic.

Another ‘device’ used in this movie was a very slow start to the automaton’s drawing. Intriguing. The influence for this might have been the famous chess-playing automaton/computer from the early 1800’s, destroyed in a fire in Philadelphia decades later. This device, which was a fake, started out very ponderously surveying the chess board, and then boldly made its first move, causing ladies amongst the spectators to gasp. It should not escape your notice, is that when clocks (this movie is big on clocks, big clocks!) were first invented 1000 years ago*, people thought “Oh, how complicated, that must be how our bodies work, in some way”. Thus, the introduction of an automaton into this book is no accident…

The automaton needs to be fixed by the watchmaker. It is not the only thing broken in this movie. The station policeman is partly mechanical and he is broken. Poor little Hugo comes from a broken family. The character played by Ben Kingsley is in need of repair.

There are many references to famous literary and movie figures of that era. One of them is Hal Roach himself, who has been associated here with Wall-E’s roach. There is a poster outside a movie theater with his name on it. And there is even a mechanical mouse! Did I mention that this was Paris? Alas, there are tasty croissants, but no mechanical mouse chefs…

*mechanical clocks, which grew more and more complicated; before these there were sundials and water flow clocks, as early as 4000 BC.