I am starting a new project. It has been in the mix since November but the rubber now has to hit the road. I am going to demo two bedrooms in my home and turn them into one bedroom for my 3 boys. I intend to create a Star Wars themed bedroom. Not just with posters, bedding, and crossed light sabers hanging on the wall but an open the door and walk onto the Millennium Falcon type of room. Walk from my carpeted hallway into another galaxy far, far away type of bedroom. I did this for my girls last year when they told me they wanted a Harry Potter themed room. I started a blog part way through making their Diagon Alley bedroom which you can check out here if you want- http://diagonallleybedroom.blogspot.com
So here are my design ideas/ considerations:
Goal- Recreate a believable "Star Wars" space within my boys bedroom.
-Millennium Falcon is the best know prop which carries through old and new generations.
-The cockpit is probably the most recognizable space.
-The room must still maintain some functionality. Namely the ability to sleep 3 people, hang/ store clothes, and have space for personal items such as toys, trophies, books, and other things the boys may deem as important to them.
I took measurements of the room and sketched out my first pass at what the room might contain. Here is what I came up with:
I am not going to bother with reference photos of the movie here as most of you probably already know them.
Tools at my immediate disposal are:
- Approximately 2k sqft. of shop space
- Most all general construction tools including various saws (radial, table, jig etc.), drills, nail guns, painting, concrete, woodworking, electrical etc..
- standard printers, 24" full color paper plotter, & 48" full color vinyl printer/plotter
- (2) 3D printers
- Metal fab shop with common welding tools, grinders, benders, and a plasma laser cutting bed. (no CNC machining tools)
- all electronic wiring and circuitry gear such as soldering guns, bread boards etc..
- Adobe Creative suite. Some programs I am proficient with, others... not so much. I have Fusion360 as well but only a couple of hours of practice thus far.
Some elements of the room I have already figured out how to do. 3D printing the hall lights and some greeblies (Thank you thingiverse contributors!), fabbing the ladder out of steel, Creating the star field out of fiber optic lighting, Pneumatic pistons/controls for the doors, Kit blaster from Dark Energy Creations, & Plexi for the cockpit windows.
Some elements I am still stuck on. Build or buy C3PO? Which elements of the cockpit am I going to keep and which will I disregard or throw out? Part of that is how to recreate elements of the cockpit I can't easily print or fab myself? The level of authenticity of the cockpit is probably my biggest juggle and dilemma. It is going to be a balance between screen accurate components and making the cockpit serve some functional/ usable purpose. The Disney cruise ship gave allot of permission to deviate from screen accuracy when they created their cruise ship version pictured here:
Having said that, I want to keep as many elements as possible to make sure that when someone walks though the blast doors there is no mistaking where you just walked into. Oh, and why double blast doors coming into the Falcon? 2 reasons. One was overhead/attic space is too shallow for a vertical raising entrance and second, I wanted a nice big opening to the room. This blast door will be seen walking down my hallway to the guest bathroom from outside of the bedroom. There will be no regular hinged door. If someone pushes the button to enter I will have a 40" opening to greet them into the space. I haven't drawn up the exact design of the doors yet but the inspiration comes from this among other photos:
I plan on having an access panel on the right side with all of the bells, whistles, lights, and whooshing sounds to accompany its use.
Back to the cockpit- I debated making the cockpit a fancy desk space for doing homework but decided against that as the yokes and buttons that litter the dash would have to be sacrificed. I cannot fit all of the cockpit into the space I have to work with so I cut out the back wall and am not sure if I should keep the back pair of seats or nix them like the cruise ship did. How screen accurate can I make the seats? Keep in mind everything in the cockpit will get played with by little kids very regularly so if an element is delicate or dangerous it won't work. I also intend my buttons and switches to do something. I have purchased several Ardiuno's to help make this happen which means that some of the screen accurate lights, sliders, and switches wont be right for my build. I have already purchased several boxes full of new and used arcade buttons joysticks and misc. parts but am not certain how much of it I want to use. For the moment my idea for the cockpit is to have it double as a gaming station. I thought about making it a retro-arcade at first. That is what is drawn on the plans. But I am leaning more towards standard gaming consoles tucked away under the dashboard with a 60" TV that would raise up from behind the control console when the "hypespace" lever is pulled. Wireless controllers could be kept in pouches on the sides of the seats or in the center console somewhere. Disney Cruise ship built the TV into the cockpit window but that isn't practical for making a usable screen for movie watching or game playing. I also wanted the star-scape to surround you in the cockpit which the Cruise ship does not do.
So why post this here? Because this is the ultimate community for this kind of stuff. I am hoping for suggestions, input, "Danger Will Robinson", any advice that will help me in this. Or just follow along as I go about this over the following months. I'm just glad I ran into the RPF. Yay, internet!
So here are my design ideas/ considerations:
Goal- Recreate a believable "Star Wars" space within my boys bedroom.
-Millennium Falcon is the best know prop which carries through old and new generations.
-The cockpit is probably the most recognizable space.
-The room must still maintain some functionality. Namely the ability to sleep 3 people, hang/ store clothes, and have space for personal items such as toys, trophies, books, and other things the boys may deem as important to them.
I took measurements of the room and sketched out my first pass at what the room might contain. Here is what I came up with:
I am not going to bother with reference photos of the movie here as most of you probably already know them.
Tools at my immediate disposal are:
- Approximately 2k sqft. of shop space
- Most all general construction tools including various saws (radial, table, jig etc.), drills, nail guns, painting, concrete, woodworking, electrical etc..
- standard printers, 24" full color paper plotter, & 48" full color vinyl printer/plotter
- (2) 3D printers
- Metal fab shop with common welding tools, grinders, benders, and a plasma laser cutting bed. (no CNC machining tools)
- all electronic wiring and circuitry gear such as soldering guns, bread boards etc..
- Adobe Creative suite. Some programs I am proficient with, others... not so much. I have Fusion360 as well but only a couple of hours of practice thus far.
Some elements of the room I have already figured out how to do. 3D printing the hall lights and some greeblies (Thank you thingiverse contributors!), fabbing the ladder out of steel, Creating the star field out of fiber optic lighting, Pneumatic pistons/controls for the doors, Kit blaster from Dark Energy Creations, & Plexi for the cockpit windows.
Some elements I am still stuck on. Build or buy C3PO? Which elements of the cockpit am I going to keep and which will I disregard or throw out? Part of that is how to recreate elements of the cockpit I can't easily print or fab myself? The level of authenticity of the cockpit is probably my biggest juggle and dilemma. It is going to be a balance between screen accurate components and making the cockpit serve some functional/ usable purpose. The Disney cruise ship gave allot of permission to deviate from screen accuracy when they created their cruise ship version pictured here:
Having said that, I want to keep as many elements as possible to make sure that when someone walks though the blast doors there is no mistaking where you just walked into. Oh, and why double blast doors coming into the Falcon? 2 reasons. One was overhead/attic space is too shallow for a vertical raising entrance and second, I wanted a nice big opening to the room. This blast door will be seen walking down my hallway to the guest bathroom from outside of the bedroom. There will be no regular hinged door. If someone pushes the button to enter I will have a 40" opening to greet them into the space. I haven't drawn up the exact design of the doors yet but the inspiration comes from this among other photos:
I plan on having an access panel on the right side with all of the bells, whistles, lights, and whooshing sounds to accompany its use.
Back to the cockpit- I debated making the cockpit a fancy desk space for doing homework but decided against that as the yokes and buttons that litter the dash would have to be sacrificed. I cannot fit all of the cockpit into the space I have to work with so I cut out the back wall and am not sure if I should keep the back pair of seats or nix them like the cruise ship did. How screen accurate can I make the seats? Keep in mind everything in the cockpit will get played with by little kids very regularly so if an element is delicate or dangerous it won't work. I also intend my buttons and switches to do something. I have purchased several Ardiuno's to help make this happen which means that some of the screen accurate lights, sliders, and switches wont be right for my build. I have already purchased several boxes full of new and used arcade buttons joysticks and misc. parts but am not certain how much of it I want to use. For the moment my idea for the cockpit is to have it double as a gaming station. I thought about making it a retro-arcade at first. That is what is drawn on the plans. But I am leaning more towards standard gaming consoles tucked away under the dashboard with a 60" TV that would raise up from behind the control console when the "hypespace" lever is pulled. Wireless controllers could be kept in pouches on the sides of the seats or in the center console somewhere. Disney Cruise ship built the TV into the cockpit window but that isn't practical for making a usable screen for movie watching or game playing. I also wanted the star-scape to surround you in the cockpit which the Cruise ship does not do.
So why post this here? Because this is the ultimate community for this kind of stuff. I am hoping for suggestions, input, "Danger Will Robinson", any advice that will help me in this. Or just follow along as I go about this over the following months. I'm just glad I ran into the RPF. Yay, internet!
lol best of luck any way man
